Colin, Stathis, Brent,
1. I think we need to distinguish a cybernetic, self-adjusting system like a sidewinder missile, from an inference-processing, self-_redesigning_ system like an intelligent being (well, not redesigning itself biologically, at least as of now).
Somehow we're code-unbound to some sufficient extent that, as a result, we can test our representations, interpretations, our systems, habits, and "codes" of representation and interpretation, rather than leaving that task entirely to biological evolution which tends to punish bad "interpretations" by removal of the interpreter from the gene pool.
There's something more than represented objects (sources), the representations (encodings), and the interpretations (decodings). This "something more" is the recipient, to whom falls any task of finding redundancies and inconsistencies between the message (or message set) and the rest of the world, such that the recipient -- I'm unsure how to put this -- is the one, or stands as the one, who deals with the existential consequences and for whom tests by subjection to existential consequences are meaningful; the recipient is in a sense a figuration of existential consequences as bearing upon the system's design. It's from a design-testing viewpoint that one re-designs the communication system itself; the recipient role in that sense is the role which includes the role of the "evolutionator" (as CA's governor might call it). In other words, the recipient is, in logical terms, the recognizer, the (dis-)verifier, the (dis-)corroborator, etc., and verification (using "verification" as the forest term for the various trees) is that "something more" than object, representation, interpretation. Okay, so far I'm just trying to distinguish an intelligence from a possibly quite vegetable-level information processs with a pre-programmed menu of feedback-based responses and behavior adjustments.
2. Verificatory bases are nearest us, while the entities & laws by appeal to which we explain things, tend to be farther & farther from us. I mean, that Colin has a point.
There's an explanatory order (or sequence) of being and a verificatory order (sequence) of knowledge. Among the empirical, "special" sciences (physical, material, biological, human/social), physics comes first in the order of being, the order in which we explain things by appeal to entities, laws, etc., "out there." But the order whereby we know things is the opposite; there human/social studies come first, and physics comes last. That is not the usual way in which we order those sciences, but it is the usual way in which we order a lot of maths when we put logic (deductive theory of logic) and structures of order (and conditions for applicability of mathematical induction) before other fields -- that's the ordering according to the bases on which we know things. The point is, that the "ultimate" explanatory object tends to be what's furthest from us; the "ultimate" verificatory basis tends to be what's nearest to us (at least within a given family of research fields -- logic and order structures are studies of reason and reason's crackups; extremization problems in analysis seem to be at an opposite pole). Well, in the end, "nearest to us" means _us_, in our personal experiences. Now, I'm not talking in general about deductively certain knowledge or verification, but just about those bases on which we gain sufficient assurance to act (not to mention believe reports coming from one area in research while not putting too much stock in reports coming from another). We are our own ultimate points of reference. Quine talks somewhere about dispensing with proper names and using a coordinate system spread out over the known universe. Which universe? The one we're in. As a practical matter, the best answer to the question "which planet is Earth" is "the one we're on." What's more, we do have experiences bearing upon our experiences. We get into that sort of multi-layered reflexivity -- and I don't mean just in an abstract intellectual way. Experiences vary in directness, firmness, reliability, etc., among other things. In these senses and more, Colin is right. One unmoors oneself from personal experience only at grave risk.
3. The problem is that it seems possible to distinguish verification, verificatory experience, etc., from consciousness. We learn sometimes unconsciously, we infer conclusively yet sometimes unconsciously, etc., we test and verify sometimes unconsciously, non-deliberately, etc. "Reasoning" is what we can call conscious inference. Testing doesn't have to be fully conscious and deliberate any more than interpretation does. The point is, is the system of a nature to learn from that which tests the system's character, its design, structure, habits, etc.? Learn, revise itself, etc., consciously or unconsciously. Any time one enters a situation with conjectures, expectations, understandings, memories, one is testing them and even testing one's ways of "generating" them, testing oneself, aside from one's having some overriding purpose of verification -- one may have some very different purpose in the given situation. And it's really quite as if we have experience unconscious as well as conscious. Maybe there's a question of the definition of the word "experience" as including the idea of consciousness, but the point is that, when we look at the things that make for a genuinely intelligent process, we find in our own experience that consciousness is associated with its working very intelligently in some respects, but not associated in every case with its working. Indeed there are persistent cases of intelligent, inferential processing going on unconsciously. Even leaving aside the phenomenon of somewhat autistic musical prodigies, and leaving aside the complex and not entirely conscious dynamics of interpersonal relationships, I think most of us have heard of Poincare's discussion of unconsciously working on a problem till, in a moment of unexpected illumination, the solution came to him, as he stepped onto a bus. Well, I don't really know what to make of this distinguishability between consciousness and verificatory experience which may be conscious or unconscious, as regards what Colin is saying, but it does seem a real question.
Best, Ben Udell
(P.S. Also, there is perhaps more than one "flavor" of less-than-consciousness -- there's a difference between slowly, unconsciously working on a problem, and lightning-quick though sometimes iffy insights which one has, one "knows not how." -- and while one can suppose that the latter are simply the outcomes of the former, I think that the latter can interact with each other in a darting and hard-to-follow way that's like the extreme opposite of the former. End of digressive postscript.)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Hales" <C.Hales.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 9:09 PM
Subject: RE: evidence blindness
> -----Original Message-----
> From: everything-list.domain.name.hidden [mailto:everything-
> list.domain.name.hidden] On Behalf Of Brent Meeker
> Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 9:49 AM
> To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: Re: evidence blindness
>
>
> Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:
> >>the fact that intelligent behaviour is third person observable but consciousness is not.
> >>
> >>Stathis Papaioannou
> >
> >
> > OK. Let me get this straight. Scientist A stares at something, say X, with consciousness. A sees X. Scientist A posits evidence of X from a third person viewpoint. Scientist A confers with Scientist B. Scientist B then goes and stares at X and agrees. Both of these people use consciousness to come to this conclusion.
> >
> > Explicit Conclusion : "Yep, theres an X!"
> >
> > Yet there's no evidence of consciousness?.... that which literally enabled the entire process? There is an assumption at work....
> >
> > "SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE"
> > and
> > "CONTENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS"
> >
> > Are NOT identities.
> >
> > When you 'stare' at anything at all you have evidence of consciousness.
>
> A SIDWINDER missile 'stares' at the exhaust of a jet aircraft. Does that make it conscious?
This is a mind-blowingly irrelevant diversion into the usual weeds that fails to comprehend the most basic proposition about ourselves by an assumption which is plain wrong. You presume that the missile stares and then attribute it to humans as equivalent. Forget the bloody missile. I am talking about YOU. The evidence you have about YOU within YOU.
Take a look at your hand. That presentation of your hand is one piece of content in a visual field (scene). Mind is literally and only a collection of (rather spectacular) phenomenal scenes.
Something (within your brain material) generates the visual field in which there is a hand. You could cognise the existence of a hand _without_ that scene (this is what blindsight patients can do - very very badly, but they can do it). But you don't. No, nature goes to a hell of a lot of trouble to create that fantastic image.
You have the scene. Take note of it. It gives you ALL your scientific evidence. This is an intrinsically private scene and you can't be objective without it! You would have nothing to be objective about.
PROOF
Close your eyes and tell me you can be more scientific about your hand than you could with them open. This is so obvious.
To say consciousness is not observable is completely absolutely wrong. We observe consciousness permanently. It's all we ever do! It's just not within the phenomenal fields, it IS the phenomenal fields.
Got it?
Colin Hales
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Received on Sat Aug 26 2006 - 22:31:59 PDT