Re: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor

From: Eric Hawthorne <egh.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 12:08:44 -0800

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> ; you might even be able to "read" the brain, scanning for neuronal
> activity and deducing correctly that the subject sees a red flash.
> However, it is impossible to know what it feels like to see a red
> flash unless you have the actual experience yourself.
>
> So I maintain that there is this extra bit of information -subjective
> experience or qualia - that you do not automatically have even if you
> know everything about the brain to an arbitrary level of precision.
> Moreover, it cannot be derived even in theory from the laws of physics
> - even though, of course, it is totally dependent on the laws of
> physics, like everything else in the Universe.

I'll grant you that the subjective experience of "red" etc cannot be
derived from a theory of physics.
However, by Occam's Razor we can say that the qualia that other people
experience are the same as those that we experience.
The reasoning is as follows:

The theorem that the qualia are the same is justifiable on the simple
theory that near-identical physical brain structure and function
(amongst humans) leads to near-identical perception of the qualia of
consciousness.

What simple theory which is consistent with the rest of our scientific
knowledge would justify that the qualia are significantly
different? Right now, in the absence of such a
qualia-difference-explaining theory, and with a plausible and simple and
non-revolutionary and reasonable theory of qualia-sameness, a
scientific-thinking default assumption should be qualia-sameness.

----
Long aside: Parallel example:
A similar "Occam's Razor" argument can explain why the 
scientific-thinking default assumption should be in the non-existence
of God, except for the undeniable existence of "God" as a human abstract 
concept, like the concept of "Nation-State".
There is a simple and reasonable theory of intelligent co-operating 
agent behaviour which runs something like that
1. We do a lot of reasoning about how agents, and in particular animal 
agents and intelligent human agents, affect
the outcomes in the world.
2. We do a lot of reasoning about how to influence these agents to act 
on the world as we would wish.
3. An "unknown-agent" proxy is an easy-to-understand extension to such 
an agent-behaviour and effects theory.
4. We can extend the same attitudes of obeisance and desire to please to 
the unknown-agent-proxy as we would
to any powerful animal agent or powerful human (king, warlord) agent. If 
we do (we would reason), we may
obtain the unknown-agent-proxy's favour and the outcome of 
unknown-agency events might come out in our favor.
Aside:
Note that the fundamental fallacy in the ancients' God-theory here is 
the ascription of unknown-cause events
as being the effects of intelligent agency. This is an example of a 
theory that is elegant, simple, and wrong. Physical
science and mathematics has by now provided alternative explanations 
(which have the advantage of being consistent with each other
and with observation i.e. of being logical and scientific) for the vast 
majority of the types of events (cosmic and planetary
origin, and life and human origin, weather, illness, love (reflection 
and elaboration of mating instincts into stories at
conscious-level of brain, in an information-processing model of 
brain/mind), crop-failure, failure or success of various
forms of psychological make-up and group-organizational behavior 
(reasons that kings might be successful or not) etc.,
5. Humans with intellect and other leadership qualities would also see 
how to harness the power implicit in the populace's
fear of and desire to be obeisant to the unknown-agent-proxy (i.e. the 
god). By proclaiming that they have special
access to the god, knowledge of its intentions, ability to influence it 
etc. they can harness the psychologically based
power that the god has over the believers' actions, and turn it into 
power that they themselves (the priesthood, the
god-kings or just kings-by-divine-right) have over the populace. 
Convenient. Too convenient not to result in a whole
entrenched societal structure of rules and hierarchical authority 
connected ultimately to the authority of the god itself.
6. Such an organised religion structure, or "god"-empowered government 
structure, if it succeeds in organizing
people for an extended period of time, as it seems they did, would 
naturally tend to take on a life of its own, a
self-reinforcing aspect, an "autopoietic" function as one of its 
functions. This self-preservation subfunction of
the "god"-empowered governance organization would take the form of 
religious education about the great history
of beneficial acts and mercies and wisdoms conferred on the people over 
their glorious history by the "god" via
the god-henchmen.
In my view, the governance aspect; that is the societal cohesion and 
organization aspect of always was the genuine
essence of organized religions, and also of divine-right governments. 
The "god"-basis was just a convenient and
effective way of obtaining allegience, quelling dissent, and thus 
maintaining the organization, which, being an
organization of co-operating agents into an emergent system, brings 
benefits of its own simply for being an organization.
These benefits are often (and deliberately (for autopoietic reasons)) 
misttributed back to (credited to) the "god" itself.
It is no co-incidence that each major civilization (and in the past, 
each smaller tribe or aboriginal nation)
comes with its own god. The harnessing by great human leaders of the 
psychologically-based power of
the "god"-concept to be a tool of, and the autopoietic basis of, human 
hierarchical organization structures,
fully explains the "one-god-and-religion-per-successful-group with 
civilizational norms and shared cultural history"
observation.
The connection between ethnicity and religion is similarly explainable 
in that the group that organizes together
and thus believes together (notice the order of those clauses) also 
tends to breed together more than with members
of another such group, and these two intertwined tendencies (group 
cohesion and in-group-breeding)
 leads to genetic AND cultural homogeneity within each civilization, and 
genetic and cultural diversity between
separated civilizations, over time.
-------
So there is a fairly simple, adequate theory that explains the rise of 
the concept of god and the rise of religion
in human society.
So in scientific terms, the onus is on those who would propose an 
alternative theory (such as "God really exists")
to provide a similar simple theory as to why their premise is more 
plausible.
Notice that I claim that my theory is adequate (sufficient) to explain 
human attitudes toward god(s) and to explain the
occurrence of religions. While it is true that a theory in which god 
really existed would also include everything
I said (i.e. the leader-humans would still harness the power to create 
emergent human organizations.
It's just that they'd be harnessing real power, not illusory power), 
there would have to ADDITIONAL explanation
for what the "real god" is, how it came to be etc etc.
In my "occam's razor" theory of god, I've explained what the god is (a 
cultural artifact as a result
of "causal-agent-reasoning in the development of human cooperative 
behaviour) . I claim that's a sufficient
explanation which requires no further explanation  of what a "real god" 
is, or how it came to be.
We NEED NOT explain "real god" because we have an adequate, explanatory, 
simple theory that can explain
observations of "god-belief" and religion formation and characteristics.
So, apart from being a possibly entertaining digression, I hope this 
example has shown how presence of
a simple, adequate theory of something (god, or 
sameness-of-qualia-of-consciousness) puts the onus on those
who claim the opposite to provide a similarly simple, cosnsistent, and 
explanatory alternative theory.
Eric

Received on Sun Feb 01 2004 - 15:12:14 PST