>One could use your argument to the conclusion that humans lack type-a
>consciousness just as HAL does. Eliminativists do something just like that.
>The other way is to argue that BOTH are conscious, or more precisely, that
>BOTH require consciousness as part of their explanation. You want this
>approach, I take it.
Not necessarily. My client doesn't care one way or the other. Eliminationism
is just as good as allowing both HAL and humans to have type-a consciousness.
Tbe main point of my objection is that your arguments are insufficient to
discriminate between HAL and humans regarding the presense or absence of
type-a consciousness one way or the other. This problem is especially acute
in that your definition of type-a consciousness is too ambiguous to tell if
the presence or absence of type-a consciousness would actually leave any
distinctive external physical evidence or not. (The Turing test is useless in
this regard as it only tests for type-b consciousness.)
>However, I'm not at all willing to grant the reductionistic premise (or its
>lack of consciousness conclusion) for humans. Both are dramatically more
>plausible for HAL, simply because (1) these reductionistic laws were
>essentially relied upon in his very design; if ever his designers detected a
>deviation from them, it would be considered a bug to be fixed;
So what if HAL's designers relied on the laws of physics? It seems that your
Designer sees to it that you follow the laws of physics as well. (Although,
from farther down in your response it seems that you may want to claim
to be a miracle worker of sorts, and that you are somehow endowed with these
miraculous abilities (which physics cannot cope with) by your type-a
consciousness. I can't see how such consciousness bestows this ability,
considering that your type-a definition is too thin to tell anything at all
about the consequences of its presence or its absence.)
> (2) HAL's
>hardware is -radically- different from humans', so to the extent that anti-
>reductionism is based on consciousness, and consciousness possibly based upon
>hardware, we've reason to doubt both HAL's irreducibility and his type-a
>consciousness (this doesn't seem to affect type-b at all, which seems in-
>principle unaffected by changes in hardware);
What reason to doubt? What do the hardware architectural differences between
HAL and human brains have to do with the presence or absence of type-a
consciousness? (Maybe your reasoning could be followed better if your
definition of type-a consciousness was less ambiguous and actually predicted
some objectively measurable effects.)
> (3) there is no introspective
>argument-from-analogy with HAL as there is with us humans or, to a
>significant degree, proto-humans, and so no such argument for irreducibility;
So there is strength in numbers here? Suppose HAL took control of the factory
that built him and he mass produced millions of HAL-type architectured
computers with which he could communicate (i.e. his offspring). He could
reason as you do that their similarity to him means that they all have type-a
consciousness (since he knows that he does), but you, who are so different from
HAL and his children, do not have it. (Who knows, maybe HAL may even have a
religion that postulated that his designers were an impersonal force.)
>and (4) I don't think even you doubt HAL's reducibility, right?
My client says he has no idea one way or the other about this.
>The other thing about HAL is that there's simply no NEED to bring type-a
>consciousness into the picture. Everything HAL does --every word, every
>action, every internal state -- is perfectly explicable without
>consciousness, and there's no independent reason to deem him conscious.
>Ockham's razor seems apropos here.
HAL could say the same thing about you once he learned enough neurology
(unless you can work miracles because of your type-a consciousness).
>But aren't humans similarly reductionistic? While materialism-with-current-
>laws-of-physics is, I think properly (for now anyway), part of the
>METHODOLOGY of biological sciences, even when studying the brain, your
>argument requires that this be not merely methodologically adopted by
>scientists, but ONTOLOGICALLY TRUE, as well.
No, it doesn't. My argument is noncommittal on the ontology of the situation
regarding the presence or absence of type-a consciousness for either HAL or
humans. My client is agnostic here. My argument is solely a negative one.
I'm calling your bluff concerning *your argument* for the *absense* of type-a
consciousness in HAL. My client doesn't take a position on the ontology of
the situation.
>Let me clarify my point significantly: using my HALlish argument, I think
>it's demonstrable that because human beings are conscious, they are not
>reducible to physics AS CURRENTLY UNDERSTOOD. That's the key qualifier.
If it is demonstrable you sure haven't demonstrated it. You just claimed it.
How do you know that human (type-a) consciousness prevents human reducibility
to currently understood physics? I'll admit that not all the detailed
mechanisms of human brain functions are yet explicitly understood, but that
doesn't mean that those mechanisms, whatever they are, are not reducible to
physics--even the physics of today--as embodied in the so-called standard
model. How does the presence of type-a consciousness prevent reducibility at
the physical level?
>The real issue here and now is whether there are conditions under which laws
>of physics (1) taken as the total explanation and description (that is, no
>action or object is inexplicable), and (2) as we -currently- understand them,
>entail the existence of type-a consciousness. (A follow-on question would be
>if HAL embodies of these conditions, but I don't think it's necessary to ask
>that.)
If that is the issue then how about if you addressed your arguments to that
point? I would first suggest that in order for any argument that you come up
for the proposition that "type-a consciousness implies irreducibility of
behavior to currently understood physics" to be persuasive it would help if
your definition of type-a consciousness were firmed up enough so that one can
actually see what the implications of its presence or absence are (regarding
physical actions).
>However, type-a consciousness (the ordinary, vague, seemingly self-evident
>introspective/perceptual variety) seems to be another matter entirely. Take,
>e.g., a visual perceptual field. Neuroscientists continue to make truly
>breathtaking progress in understanding how the brain processes visual
>stimuli. However, so far as I know at any rate, they are not explaining
>REDUCTIONISTICALLY things like the conscious experience of, say, seeing a
>chess board. They can explore perhaps reductionistic ASPECTS of such
>explanations (e.g., neural activity, just presuming that such is at least
>largely explainable reductionistically), but the way that they know what's
>happening at the CONSCIOUS (type-a) level is by CORRELATION WITH
>INTROSPECTIVE REPORTS, a critical "unreduced" component, and certainly not by
>deriving the reality of such conscious experience from known physical,
>chemical, or biological laws.
It seems that now you have changed the point of discussion and answered a
different point than the one I thought we were discussing. This is an
argument that a natural physical description of brain operation doesn't
explain what an internal type-a perception is. Even my client will grant
that imaterial/unphysical things may not be wholly described with physical
scientific descriptions. (He is actually noncommittal regarding the
existence of an entire "spirit world".) Your argument above is not an
argument that the presence of type-a consciousness is somehow incompatible
with physical law and will therefore leave physical "fingerprints" of some
kind (which are inexplicable by physical law) that will therefore serve as an
indicator of the presence of said type-a consciousness. From what I can tell,
you have conflated the idea that physics is incomplete (in that it is
incapable of describing conceptually immaterial nonphysical concepts) with
the idea that the presence of type-a consciousness in association with a
physical object (such as a functioning brain or computer) will produce
physical effects which are inexplicable using currently understood physics.
These are two different issues.
>(4) Try a different approach: If chemical or neurological brain states when
> combined with the laws of physics and chemistry lead to type-a
> consciousness, then it should be possible to show how the eliminative
> materialists' theories violate the laws of physics. I don't think
> there's even a hint of a reason to believe that they do. <snip>
I don't think so either. Thus, this is not any evidence that the presence of
type-a consciousness leads to any *physical effects* that can be
distinguished from those produced in the absence of a type-a consciousness
one way or the other.
>(1) HAL is a being completely, without residue, and by design explicable
> in current purely physically reductionistic terms. (I've seen the
> blueprints, Dave. They rely on this. :^> )
OK, So? Just because his physical operation is physically describable in
"physically reductionistic terms" is no reason to conclude that HAL can't
have a type-a consciousness. He might have a "residue" of type-a
consciousness.
>(2) No explanation in current purely physically reductionistic terms
> refers to type-a consciousness. (Prove this wrong, win a trip to
> Sweden. :^> )
Quite true. That's why we can't use the physical operation of something to
tell if it has a type-a consciousness or not.
>(3) If any explanation of O is complete and without residue, nothing
> outside that explanation is a part of the explanation of O.
I'm not admitting your premise here. I'll allow HAL to be *physically*
describable in terms of physics, but that doesn't address the issue of
whether or not he has a residue of a type-a consciousness which cannot be
described by physics. (I'm admitting the incompleteness of physics here
regarding some *immaterial* concepts--not physical ones. Since your
definition of type-a consciousness is so vague to be able to tell one way or
the other, it is quite possible that it is indeed such an immaterial concept.
But you haven't yet shown that type-a consciousness must leave any *physical*
evidence that is inexplicable by physics.)
>Therefore,
>(4) HAL lacks type-a consciousness (or more precisely, type-a
> consciousness is not part of the explanation for HAL).
Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow. It may be true that invoking a
type-a consciousness is not *needed* to explain the physical operation of
HAL, but that doesn't address the issue of whether or not he has one. Similar
reasoning applied to you would say you have no type-a consciousness either,
*unless* you are indeed a miracle worker whose physical behavior violates the
laws of physics, and that these miraulous powers must be attributable to your
type-a consciousness by some as yet undefined means.
>(5) Humans have type-a consciousness.
You haven't shown this. It's an assumption on your part. (I personally
believe this as well, but my client is agnostic on the issue.)
>Therefore
>(6) Humans are not completely and without residue explicable in current
> purely physically reductionistic terms.
This may be true relative their immaterial type-a aspect, but it says nothing
about their *physical behavior* not being completely describable in
physically reductionistic terms *unless* humans are miracle workers by virtue
of their possession of their type-a consciousness. But if this is indeed the
case, you haven't shown it, since you have never made a connection between an
object's possession of a type-a consciousness and a distinctive physical
effect (inexplicable in terms of physics) produced by that consciousness.
Your arguments are insufficient to decide against animism let alone against
HAL's type-a consciousness. They are even insufficient to decide in favor of
type-a consciousness for humans--except by hypothesis.
I think in order to make further progress your definition of type-a
consciousness needs to be made much more precise so we have some idea as to
what to expect from the possession of type-a consciousness that is
distinctively different from merely a type-b consciousness that passes the
Turing test.
David Bowman
dbowman@gtc.georgetown.ky.us