Daniel Dennett -"A Phenomenal Confusion About Access and Consciousness"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- Dennett's talk at the Evolution and Function of Consciousness conference ("Turing Consciousness 2012") held at the University of Montreal as part of Alan Turing Year. All videos can be found here: users.ecs.soton...
What a masterful use of intellect. Dennett is the best example I know of a mind meticulously analyzing itself.
Yeah! And coming to the realization he's just a dumb, pretending shit!
Lol good joke
then you simply have poor exposure to rigorous intellect what need to mention intellectual honesty.
My effort to sum up the conversation about subjective experiences between the two sides.
A: What purpose does the illusion server?
B: It just so happens to be that we live in a reality that functions in this manor giving rise to the illusion, no purpose, deal with it.
A: But my whole experience with reality is dependent on this illusion, doesn't that get you thinking?
B: That line of curiosity doesn't interested me, It offers no valuable insights into the nature of our reality.
A: But isn't it your reality?
B: It appears so.
Dennett is ahead of his time
The greatest talk ever against the confused idea of "qualia"
Dennett puts a lot of focus on neuroscience, psychology, etc in his theorizing. There is a video on here called Big Thinkers - Daniel Dennett [Philosopher] that is really good and only 20 minutes long. In it he says that philosophy often consists of asking the wrong questions, and when you get the right question you go find the answer most often with science. Dennett's main goal it seems is to clean up philosophical confusion to clear the room for psychology and neuroscience (which is my field)
Dennett gave a great talk ... big shocker.
I'm drunk and pushing it - but Russell made a point that the only thing you can actually be sure about is what's directly staring you in the face [immediate experience]. Dennett says that anything anyone says about immediate experience is hopelessly confused because he can't understand it. I'm pretty sure that the fact that he directly follows Gilbert Ryle and Ryle was his supervisor is just a coincidence. Descartes too. Dennett clears this all up in 'Quining Qualia' : "Whatever that means".
An enlightening talk. What we call (phenomenal) "consciousness" I think is in fact the highly hierarchical and recursive clusters of cognition that go about in our unimaginably complex brains. Strongly aided by language as a new medium for abstract representation, our brains simulate a self and a world in order to make new kinds of regulation of the organisms behavior possible, among which planning, social adjustment and -coordination.
There seems to be a divide between those who believe the scientific explanation of consciousness will involve some new principles, and those who think our current intellectual tools are sufficient to explain it.
The former believes, a priori, that you need to reject computational functionalism; the latter believes a priori that computational functionalism is needed. These are consequences of the pre-theoretic divide, not the cause.
If you want resolve, argue about Turing universality.
So, I trucked through Dan's whole hour presentation. There were times when I was on Dan's side, and other times where I was not. All in all his perspective casts a valuable light on ideas about consciousness that shouldn't be ignored, but, for me, he has always fallen short of explaining away our subjective experience. His ideas did a better job at explaining the relationship between our subconscious and conscious processes, which I do agree that a large part of our subjective experience includes little 'choice', but unlike Dan, I think our personal reality is ONLY the figments, feelings, juice, and sauce. Our abstract concepts about the going ons of our universe provide but a momentary blip of 'juice' in my day to day life.
Given that both sides accept that no solution is yet at hand, ANYTHING is permitted. One might object that those eager for new principles should suggest something. However, the other side might equally want a proof for why new principles cannot be needed. In the meantime, those who are ABLE to sit uncomfortably, might be wise in so doing.
That is a good way of expressing the analytic tradition in philosophy. Analytic philosophers see the role of philosophy as unpacking language and clearing away the confusion so we can then go find the answers.
It's a pity that we shall probably never be able to decide what consciousness actually is. We can only agree that it exists individually. - Or semi-exists in the case of some individuals...?
Dennett is smart, he's got the whole God look and Darwin look going on simultaneously. Appeals to all sides! lol
Great lecture, I thought I'd seen them all.
yeah man; get with the program. Dennett is a friggin genius. I can't believe that people believe in consciousness. Haven't you ever heard of knowledge. We know like everything now. Especially Dennett - he's so clever; so dreamy!! Consciousness is just a myth that people come up with in order to justify stuff like analogies. Like Dennett, I can't use the things - but it doesn't matter, cos he's so knowledgeable about like, everything. Isn't he such a dream?
This was fantastic, Dennett almost always does that nice trick changing that duck into that rabbit for me.
and not in a disingenuous way
Okay...trying to wrap my brain around this: We can be mistaken about the contents of our own experiences, our "inner theater". And therefore, we might also be wrong about the fact that we even have any private, inner experiences at all. Therefore, our experiencing self is illusory, as are the contents of this illusory self's experiences (qualia)?
So consciousness is basically an experiencer who doesn't exist being fooled into thinking it's having a direct experience of illusory stuff (qualia)?
In other words, consciousness is a nonexistent thing being fooled into thinking that it exists, and also being fooled into thinking it experiences stuff that also doesn't actually exist? It's a non-existent thing being fooled by its own non-existent self as well as another non-existent thing?
Makes sense. "Hard Problem", solved!
But seriously, what part of that am I getting wrong? I must be getting something wrong. Please tell me I'm getting something wrong.
That's true. It's just a feeling I have that's difficult to explain. Sometimes it almost seems, when it's very quite and calm, that there is a steam of dialog and ideas that come from outside. A totality of expression that the mind can be tuned to receive.
Daniel Dennett ---- A Phenomenal Confusion About *Perception* and *Consciousness*
I suppose you have a scenario where one’s gums are flapping and it appears one is talking about something, but to what extent does this count as a bona fide ‘operationalisation’ of what it is one is supposedly talking about?
I simply couldn't have said it better myself. :)
40:47 can anyone make out what the person (Harnad) in the audience says?
Too right. We don't need to appeal to some bearded man in the sky for our certainty; we've got a bearded man right here to tell us how it is. I get so fed up with Nobel Laureates in physics like Heisenberg and Feynman going on about how physics is just a method of modelling motion mathematically, and that we have to admit that we do not "know" anything for sure. What do they know? Dan Dennett clears it all up. If he can't understand something, no way it can be true. Dan Dennett 4 Deity.
Some ramblings for those who followed this video:
It is interesting to think about how evolution could just be those processes that time travel, maintaining their form with slight alterations every now and then. recurrent structures like the living cell and our sense of self and the mind. Constant feedback loops allowing the development of ever complex feedback loops maintaining the complex structures supporting the loops on their journey through time.
I would love to know how Dan thinks we could create an AI that doesn't take advantage of cheating, I laughed at that part, like it was just a given "well of course the AI wouldn't just mimic responses to real stimuli, it would be a genuine response". lol
Hi, there is something interesting that you said about functionalism being fruitful, but perhaps wrong. In the history of science many paradigms have had smashing success, such as Newtonian physics, but turned out to be incomplete or wrong. And in neuroscience there is another sort of computer-esque approach called parallel distributed processing, which is more of a connectionist theory of how neurons carry out cognitive functions. It's often regarded as a rival approach to computationalism.
Since Bc→Cf is equivalent to ¬Cf→¬Bc, asserting ¬Bc→¬Cf implies that Bc↔Cf, right? But what does that have to do with consciousness?
Let's just say that we agree that whatever we mean by "consciousness" the brain has it. How did you get from that to the next sentence? I don't get it.
Is Sapience and Sentience related to Heidegger's ideas about "being".
the only world i commit to always exerts a force on me.
I was replying to you with a further dose of sarcasm loosely based around the fact that 'the objective world' obviously follows from high school chemistry if you paid attention then I got some big window insisting I offer my name. I tried to skip it and it deleted the message. What I wrote was lost. The point is, either Christianity is true or Daniel Dennett is like a modern day Bertrand Russell [people actually write that!! - it's something like 'rationalwiki,org' or something]. 1orDAother.
What is the criteria to say that a computer or a certain machine is conscious? How can it be verified?
I don't get what you mean. I see that you are in a larger discussion; my question was strictly about your use of the term "consciousness". Without a definition I can't see what you could mean.
The next part is confusing. You say:
Bc→Cf
¬Bc→¬Cf
What is the conclusion you are making?
what do I care about computers being conscious, when the artificial beings I have to be worried about are corporations, and they already have the rights of a human being, without the liabilities, under the law?
How'd you know??
I saw a picture of you once.
The reason why we know what you think isn't true is because of the entire lecture Dan just gave.
Just like evolution, we are a conglomeration of inanimate, material, unconscious things, which make up a functional, yet ultimately illusory consciousness. In the same way, he's described further how there is no 'ghost in the machine' by furthering his strange inversion of reasoning, letting us know once again that evolution solves these things without a hiccup.
I understand that it's a feeling, but feelings shouldn't be a basis of knowledge. Feelings generally arise in the more primitive parts of our brain not associated with rational thought, thus, they can be trusted less than logical deductions. Of course it's alright to speculate on the topic, just don't spread it as certain knowledge :)
I love Dennett's writing, but for the life of me I can't force myself to listen to him. The pauses and the redundancy are too much.
ramble ramble ramble
14:50 Must have had a bean burrito for breakfast.
I my opinion a philosopher is not sufficiently equipped with the tools necessary to study these problems. It's science, not philosophy.
That suggests you're not familiar with Dennett's work. The distinction isn't as sharpe as you think.
Until you can explain the mechanism of how that happens, this is a baseless assertion. All the evidence so far is to the contrary.
(they have tax liabilities, to some extent, but just try sending one to jail)
terrible audio
lol
Do you pick up the 'waves' through tinfoil hats?
In summary:
1) In academic philosophy, a paper can be highly regarded and influential for decades even if it's gibberish, and
2) although the red stripe is simple, the technical argot of academic philosophy can barely get a grip on it -- which is usually a sign that the language is flawed and in need of revision.
Really?
Na man, that's why we wear the hat. Duh.