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[KittyTac]

True learning is much more complex than changing a few variables. It isn't simulated in DF.

[KittyTac]

My definition of sentience is the ability to be creative with >~ human-level intelligence. So dwarves are not sentient by that definition.

You know the enchanting end of the previous thread. Don't make a reenactment.

[Putnam]

My definition of sentience is the ability to be creative with >~ human-level intelligence.

that's not a definition of sentience i've ever heard and, indeed, doesn't jive with everything i know about sentience, e.g. that most mammals are sentient as well as a lot of birds

[KittyTac]

My definition of sentience is the ability to be creative with >~ human-level intelligence.

that's not a definition of sentience i've ever heard and, indeed, doesn't jive with everything i know about sentience, e.g. that most mammals are sentient as well as a lot of birds

Well, that's how I define it.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I see we're having our usual "what is sentience" discussion, with all the lessons from previous threads on the same topic already forgotten.

Including the way we mix up the words sapient and sentient freely (well, I think I've seen Toady do that too...).

[KittyTac]

Wait, I have been thinking of SAPIENCE. Well, that's the thing that matters in my worldview.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

We have no evidence of it. So there's no point in believing that claim if it would inconvenience you.

Dwarves are not alive. They're less intelligent than bacteria and can be killed freely. As a materialist, I define "sentience" as the ability to be creative with overall human or higher-level intelligence, nothing to do with free will. DF dwarves have neither.

You are defining sentience as simply a set of behaviors.  But actual consciousness is not needed to explain any of those behaviors, so according to Occam's Razor you are eliminated as a redundant entity, since everything you do can be explained simply a result of chance and contingency.  We don't need the mind, we don't need 'awareness', we don't need 'choice', we don't need to *ever* ascribe consciousness to anything, since everything that anything does is explainable as a result of cause-and-effect and if that does not work we can use chance.

If you read the original post, you would know that I am merely making an observation and it serves to give us the perspective of a god. Or like a Lovecraftian Great Old One.

I thought it was an interesting viewpoint to be able to experience that promotes a form of existential nihilism

Oh. So you're not arguing that they're alive? Then I'll back out. Now lock the thread before GoblinCookie starts spouting nonsense like a garden sprinkler.

Well your the one arguing against your own existence while not realizing that is what you are doing.

You are coming into this with the assumption that consciousness is nonphysical. If consciousness is physical, then your responses are meaningless. At the very least, try understand the point of view of physicalists, even if you think it is incorrect.

To a physicalist, consciousness is a higher-order description of a physical process. It does not exist separately from the physical process, but can abstracted and generalized. The fact that the process can be described without reference to consciousness does not mean that the consciousness does not exist, only that it does not separately exist.

[Putnam]

Consciousness isn't a monad, yeah.

[KittyTac]

I don't believe in free will.

[GoblinCookie]

You sound like you do not believe in free will. I also don't.

Free will is a problematic concept yes.  As a dualist the non-existance of free will basically means that consciousness is operating like a projection, the projector (physical body) creates a non-physical projection that passively reflects the material reality.  Free will is simply the conscious awareness of the randomness of the physical systems of the body/brain. 

This creates fewer problems for me (not that I am not still sitting on the fence) than a free will universe.  In that case the dualistic mind is acting more like a user-interface, that is it is a projection that allows the will to make controlled alterations to the state of the physical body/brain rather than simply passively reflecting it's state.  The problem is that it requires the non-physical to influence the physical universe and since we cannot detect the non-physical within the physical universe that means the causality is going to invisible to us. 

In both cases randomness is crucial.  In the free-will universe randomness serves in an interesting function, it acts a cloak to hide the non-physical causality or alternatively it is an illusion created by our inability to observe the external causal agent within the physical box.  In effect it is pseudorandomness, sort of how dwarf fortress actually works, it seems the game is deciding things at random but really it is doing so entirely deterministically based upon a random seed. 

If dwarf fortress beings were conscious, they would not have free will nor a concept of it.  That is because dwarf fortress is deterministic, they would have no experience of their own randomness because they are entirely pre-determined and there is no randomness in a computer program for any actual pseudorandomness to hide.

@GoblinCookie: Only if you presume you are consiciousness could you thus be theoretically eliminated in that premise. From outside perspective, I'm no different than Chinese room which outputs into this textbox here - but if this output is me, doing the switcheroo doesn't get rid of me at all.

That said, good demonstration of failure to account for drug-fueled artists of the imagination: Ability to be creative, no ability to verify they're being creative.

That is probably true, except that there is no real point in unconsciously being something; that does not allow you go on the internet and discuss consciousness.

You are coming into this with the assumption that consciousness is nonphysical. If consciousness is physical, then your responses are meaningless. At the very least, try understand the point of view of physicalists, even if you think it is incorrect.

To a physicalist, consciousness is a higher-order description of a physical process. It does not exist separately from the physical process, but can abstracted and generalized. The fact that the process can be described without reference to consciousness does not mean that the consciousness does not exist, only that it does not separately exist.

I reject the physicality of consciousness for a reason, I don't just assume it. 

My responses were based upon assuming for the sake of argument that consciousness is physical.  Saying that consciousness is physical is to say that it is a material *thing*, however many fancy words you decide to use to describe the nature of the physical thing that it is.  As a physical thing it is subject to Occam's Razor, if we don't need it then away it goes.  Everything that you or I anybody else does or is can be explained by ordinary chance+contingency.  There is no need to take into account a consciousness *thing* that materially exists in whatever sense you are proposing it exists as, since we can explain everything perfectly without it. 

[KittyTac]

Well, then it doesn't really matter, doesn't it? It's not a problem outside of armchair philosophy.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

actual pseudorandomness

o_O

That is probably true, except that there is no real point in unconsciously being something; that does not allow you go on the internet and discuss consciousness.

If consciousness is not epiphenomenal (and it seems you don't think it is, since you think that you need to be conscious to discuss consciousness), then either it is physical or there is an as-yet-undiscovered connection between quarks and the Realm of the Mind. Any theory which requires significant, unspecified changes to fundamental physics should receive a significant penalty.

You are coming into this with the assumption that consciousness is nonphysical. If consciousness is physical, then your responses are meaningless. At the very least, try understand the point of view of physicalists, even if you think it is incorrect.

To a physicalist, consciousness is a higher-order description of a physical process. It does not exist separately from the physical process, but can abstracted and generalized. The fact that the process can be described without reference to consciousness does not mean that the consciousness does not exist, only that it does not separately exist.

I reject the physicality of consciousness for a reason, I don't just assume it. 

My responses were based upon assuming for the sake of argument that consciousness is physical.  Saying that consciousness is physical is to say that it is a material *thing*, however many fancy words you decide to use to describe the nature of the physical thing that it is.  As a physical thing it is subject to Occam's Razor, if we don't need it then away it goes.  Everything that you or I anybody else does or is can be explained by ordinary chance+contingency.  There is no need to take into account a consciousness *thing* that materially exists in whatever sense you are proposing it exists as, since we can explain everything perfectly without it.

1. Occam's razor does not apply to definitions and categories. "It is strictly simpler for blue to not actually exist, only objects that tend to reflect light of particular wavelengths..." Reductio ad absurdum.

2. When you say "you, unaware of it, are arguing against your own existence," you are presupposing that if KittyTac were correct about consciousness being physical, they wouldn't exist. This is combining your beliefs and KittyTac's, and then claiming that the combination is an accurate reflection of KittyTac's beliefs.

[KittyTac]

I definitely exist.

You can clearly see why I have a grudge on GC.

[Putnam]

Occam's razor is, in fact, an excellent argument for physicalism, since clearly what most would call "consciousness" does exist and personality changes from brain damage etc. point toward it coming from the brain.

The possibilities are essentially that consciousness either comes from the brain or does not come from the brain and merely appears to come from the brain in every way all the way down to being profoundly affected by changes in the layout or chemical balance of the brain.

We can see why the former makes fewer assumptions.

[GoblinCookie]

If consciousness is not epiphenomenal (and it seems you don't think it is, since you think that you need to be conscious to discuss consciousness), then either it is physical or there is an as-yet-undiscovered connection between quarks and the Realm of the Mind. Any theory which requires significant, unspecified changes to fundamental physics should receive a significant penalty.

You are getting it backwards.  The physics follows the evidence, the evidence does not follow the physics, no penalty therefore for disagreeing with fundamental physics. 

I don't think the connection need be between the actual quarks and the realm of the mind.  The connection is probably between the unified object that is the body and it's mind, that is because all the neurons are identical and we are only aware of some of the brain's content. Free will, if it exists likely works because there is a physical law that requires that the physical reality conform to it's mental representation.  This law works in reverse also, that is why you can move your arm freely but not engage in matrix-spoon bending. 

Your arm moving is possible, that means that the reality will conform to the mind.  You move your imaginary arm and since it corresponds to a possible state that the universe could logically assume your actual arm moves.  You try and move the spoon however and the universe 'says no' because there is no logical way that such an outcome can occur and the principle hence works backwards, your mind is forced to conform to matter rather than the reverse.

Mind must conform to matter and the universe has two ways of accomplishing this.  First it tries Mind-Over-Matter and then it tries Matter-Over-Mind. 

1. Occam's razor does not apply to definitions and categories. "It is strictly simpler for blue to not actually exist, only objects that tend to reflect light of particular wavelengths..." Reductio ad absurdum.

2. When you say "you, unaware of it, are arguing against your own existence," you are presupposing that if KittyTac were correct about consciousness being physical, they wouldn't exist. This is combining your beliefs and KittyTac's, and then claiming that the combination is an accurate reflection of KittyTac's beliefs.

1. No, blue exists because it's existence is empirically verified by observation.  Occam's Razor applies to theoretical (non-observable) explanations, not to observable things; or to put it another way, it applies to entities whose existence is indirectly proven by necessity.  Consciousness (of other people) is not empirically observable, which puts it in the theoretical explanation camp and so it falls under Occam's Razor. 

If I see two monkeys turning the wheel but only one monkey is needed, Occam's Razor does not establish that one of the monkeys does not exist.  If I see blue, then blue exists as an entity; it is only wrong to invent something like blue when one colour would do as an explanation. 

2. It is quite acceptable to assume somebody else's position in order to reveal it's internal contradictions.  The irony here is that KittyTac is only disproving his own existence from MY perspective.  From his perspective he is actually disproving MY existence, in both cases Occam's Razor swiftly eliminates everyone but the observer, whose consciousness stands on empiricism. 

Occam's razor is, in fact, an excellent argument for physicalism, since clearly what most would call "consciousness" does exist and personality changes from brain damage etc. point toward it coming from the brain.

The possibilities are essentially that consciousness either comes from the brain or does not come from the brain and merely appears to come from the brain in every way all the way down to being profoundly affected by changes in the layout or chemical balance of the brain.

We can see why the former makes fewer assumptions.

The only existence whose existence is empirical is your own.  All other consciousness are non-empirical objects, which means we don't need more of them that are necessary.  If the material object that is the brain can explain everything the body does without the need of a physical consciousness 'thing' inside the brain, therefore Occam's Razor eliminates not just non-physical consciousness but conscious itself if we make consciousness physical. 

Or rather it eliminates all consciousnesses *other* than the observer.  Occam's Razor does not work against empirically observable things.

I definitely exist.

You can clearly see why I have a grudge on GC.

You exist because you are wrong.