A difficult puzzle..

So, you directly observe feelings (because you feel them), and indirectly observe biological phenomena and mechanisms.

 

You continue to pose circular arguments and avoid offering any evidence for your position. There is no difference here.

Lets go back to your own favored thought experiment. A robot can completely understand the mathematics of the sun... and still have no idea what a sun is. That same robot can completely understand the mathematics of an emotion... and still have no idea what an emotion is.

Humans experience both things (suns and emotions) differently than robots do. This is because humans have brains and robots do not. Not because suns and emotions are different in any material or mystical way.

Which has nothing at all to do with entropy or information or mathematics or perception or anything else we've been covering. You have gone completely off the rails of this discussion.

 

No!!

Emotion is an electro-physio-chemical event in the brain. The sun is electro-physio-chemical event in space. We perceive both using the identical neural machinery.

There is no difference.

So is an emotion.

 

We observe everything using the identical neural machinery. One is not necessarily any more direct than the other.

 

How is it not circular reasoning to think, "I indirectly perceive these biological events with my senses and feelings. I know that I indirectly perceive these biological events with my senses and feelings, because I know that these biological events are what generate my senses and feelings"?

Technically, the belief that the universe is "real" and that anything beyond your mind exists, is circular reasoning.

It would have a perfect understanding of the sun, assuming that the sun is actually a mathematical object.

It has to do with the fact that a disorganized dust cloud millions of cubic light years in volume could be describable as much more "complex" than the human brain.

Also, the universe itself is much more complex than the human brain.

 

How do you know?

"The only thing that you can know exists for certain, is your own mind", so they say.

Which means that observing your own mind is more direct than observing anything else which may or may not simply be a product of your mind (i.e. imagination).

 

So since I observe my own emotions, should I not be automatically aware of the electro-physio-chemical events in my brain, since they are identical? Even if I'm an ancient caveman?

 

I don't know what kind of "reasoning" that is, since it does not appear to be reasoning at all. I suspect you intended it as another straw man... but cannot be sure since it is so completely garbled. I honestly cannot make heads nor tails of what you were trying to say there.

Nonsense. Induction from empirical observation is linear, not circular.

Oh? Since when do robots understand anything? They have no more understanding than a ball-peen hammer.

That is such a dumb argument I cannot believe you are making it. Sure it "could be describable" that way... but who in their right minds would do so?

Lets pretend arguendo that you are correct.... just for a second.

Since we have no problem understanding massive disorganized dust clouds, you have merely provided another example of the human brain's ability to understand profoundly massive and complex things. You support my position even by accident.

Larger and older? Certainly. More complex? Not based on what we actually do know about it. To this point, nothing we have observed in the universe is more complex than the human brain. If you'd like to try again with a different candidate, do so.

But dust clouds are not the ticket out of your conundrum.

 

Because we can see it.

Try telling that to a paranoid schizophrenic. They will quickly disabuse you of that belief.

You run with that if it floats your boat. Solipsism is the lazy man's way out of an argument. It is essentially a complete abandonment of the rhetorical field.

 

You are absolutely aware of them.

Of course.

Just as the ancient cavemen were automatically aware of lighting and the seasons.

 

So ancient cavemen understood the electro-physio-chemical mechanisms which generate emotion and thoughts? Not even modern day humans understand that.

Yet if A is identical to B, you should understand both, since they are identical. Cavemen knew nothing of the biological mechanisms behind emotions and thoughts. They knew their own feelings perfectly. Therefore these two things are not identical.

 

Assumption 1: my senses and internal mind are trustworthy.

Assumption 2: my senses tell me that outside objects and phenomena are occurring.

Assumptions 3: I am identical or essentially identical/comparable to others in whatever mechanisms produce said senses and internal mind (as indicated by the term "human" brain etc.)

Assumptions 4: these mechanisms from assumption 3, are among the outside objects and phenomena that are occurring, as observed by my senses.

But these 4 assumptions are probably most likely correct for the most part, within the limitations of intelligence and senses.

This relies on the assumption that empirical observation is reliable, which relies on the above assumptions.

Why? What is understanding, intrinsically? They can process information.

This is going to be all that should be needed to separate a "conscious" creature with one that can only process information and thus be "intelligent", but not "conscious" and thus have feelings etc.

We can understand the constituent parts of dust clouds (the atoms in them), but there's no way any human mind could map out all the precise coordinates in space, down to the nearest Plank length, that each atom exists at any one point in time. That would actually be harder than doing so with the human brain since the human brain has less atoms to map out.

If you base complexity on organization, then well, the human body is also very complex, but the human body itself can't understand anything, not even an atom. Would that mean that the human body isn't more complicated than an atom?

Or are you simply assuming that a perceiver's ability to understand is directly proportional to the complexity of the mechanisms which generate said perceiver? If so, why?

 

Of course not. But they were absolutely aware of them. Stop setting up straw men and argue with what I actually say rather than the voices in your head.

You speak only for yourself. Modern day humans have no trouble understanding that. Or at least some of us don't.

Or understand neither. You don't have to understand them to be aware of them and to experience them.

They didn't need to. They only needed to be aware of them. Again, stop setting up straw men.

Of course they knew their feelings. That doesn't require that they understand them anymore than they needed to understand lighting or the seasons.

They are the exact identical thing, whether or not they are understood.

 

Umm..they weren't aware of the slightest bit of modern theories of neurology and chemistry and physics.

But what do you mean by "aware" in this context?

 

Why should any of them be assumptions?

We conclude (rather than assume) that our senses and internal mind are trustworthy because we constantly test whether or not that is true. If they were not, we would probably die quickly. We do not die quickly, therefore they are trustworthy. This is a conclusion from empirical evidence, not an assumption.

They actually work.

What you call here "Assumption 2" is pure solipsism. It deserves no attention since whether or not it is true doesn't even matter. It makes no actual difference to anything we do in the course of our lives.

What you call "Assumptions 3" is something we also constantly test. We actually have the communications skills to compare experiences... and therefore the shared similarity is another empirical conclusion from actual evidence.

And finally, your "Assumption 4" is just redundant blather, adding nothing to the discussion.

Your argument here is pretty much one that most people outgrow before high school. It is among the most pointless of philosophical speculations. If you believe it to be true, then it must really suck to be you, spending all this time on an imaginary Internet arguing with yourself.

If they are not, again, you are arguing with yourself here. By pretty much any measure that would make you insane.

Understanding demands sentience. No robot possesses it.

Go test that out and come on back and tell me about all the sentient robots you find.

So what? That has nothing to do with being able to understand them. We do not have to "map out" a dust cloud to understand it completely.

The brain is part of the human body... so you are rather patently mistaken regarding the human body's ability to understand an atom. That said, why would you hallucinate that complexity demands sentience. A pretty dumb proposition that.

You really are swinging wildly in the dark. Why not just meet the simple challenge posed more than a score posts ago?

Just demonstrate a single thing in the universe that is not purely material/physical/mathematical.

Just one will do.

It's not an assumption. It too is an empirical observation. there are a vast number of different and differently complex neural systems in nature that we can and have examined.

There actually is a direct correlation between "a perceiver's ability to understand" and "the complexity of the mechanisms which generate said perceiver."

Go check yourself. Line up a planarian, a parrot, a porpoise and a person and see for yourself.

 

Why would they need to?

They didn't understand meteorology either. Yet they were just as dead when struck by lightning.

It is your term. You first used it in post #232.

You tell us what you mean.

 

These tests are determined by outside objects whom the existence of is assumed based on the assumption that our minds and senses are trustworthy.

I actually don't believe in solipsism because of Occam's razor, but there's no way to verify it or not, then again this is getting irrelevant.

Can you give an exact definition of "sentience"? I've never been able to find any exact objective definitions of that, along with consciousness.

Then you did assume that complexity of the mechanisms which generate a mind = ability to understand. I see.

But since you are under the apparently permanent assumption that if A is the mechanism for B, that they must be identical, so I can't even say the obvious for that question, which are "feelings".

A processor of information could operate in a different way than anything on this planet and have less complexity but more understanding than us.

But, why does this matter again?

 

Meteorology is equivalent to the phenomenon of lighting???

And they didn't understand lightning, either. They understood the senses they felt when they saw and heart it.

Why is "sentience" (whatever that even possibly means) necessary to process information to where a thing can understand anything?

 

No. It's not.

They understood it exactly as well as they understood their own feelings and emotions.

For god's sake man, use a dictionary.

That is what sentience means.

 

No they are not. You have that exactly backwards. We perform those tests whether we make any assumptions or not. We have no choice. We exist.

The empirical evidence however always leads to the same conclusion.

That's why it's a pointless question. So it was always irrelevant and I am puzzled as to why you ever introduced it.

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences.

How hard was that?

Again, it is not an assumption. It is a conclusion from the empirical evidence.

Another straw man. I have no obligation to dress things I have never said.

Show me an example.

I have no idea. But it certainly seems very important to you.

 

Well they didn't understand or observe the mechanisms behind weather even if they could observe the weather. Just like we can understand and observe the mechanisms behind feelings even if we can only feel the feelings themselves.

They saw it and heard it, but they didn't understand the mechanisms behind it. Then again we feel feelings but (still) don't understand the mechanisms behind it.

This only shows, however, that feelings are not identical to the mechanisms behind them.

Then how do you exactly define "to understand" then?

 

Just as they didn't understand the mechanisms behind emotions even if they could experience them.

That sentence makes no sense. What are you trying to say?

Those are the identical circumstance... except that we actually do understand the mechanisms behind feelings and emotions now.

The neurological event is not the "mechanism." It is the emotion. The mechanism is the neural system.

To perceive the significance, explanation, or cause of something.

 

It was a tangent, but I'm going to forget about it now.

The ability to feel and subjective experiences don't necessarily prohibit a being from being able to understand, but "perception" obviously prohibits that since I define "perception" as "the ability to process information", which computers do, albeit with limited kinds of information.

I agree that computers are not "sentient", but it's so rough of a term, that it has to be more precise to discuss.

Well, biological activity in the brain is the mechanism behind feelings.

I have none.

Which, means basically nothing since we have only closely observed a grain of sand amongst an enormous beach, of this galaxy, and this galaxy is far, far less to the universe, than a grain of sand is to an enormous beach.

 

OKAYYYY so NOWWWW I'm FINALLYYYYYY being told this. Finally.

The TIME CONSUMING EVENT of a neurological system ACTING, is the feeling, rather than the time-irrelevant neural system itself. I didn't see an explicit distinction made between those two things so I ASSumed they were meant to be the same this whole time, or if I did see a distinction made, I was thinking about something else and forgot about it.

I still do not agree with that for similar reasons about experiencing feelings vs. observing these mechanisms, but at least this has been mentioned.

 

Your definition of perception is bogus. Therein lies your problem. By your standard an abacus is capable of "perception."

Sentient is not a rough term at all. You are the first person I have ever met who seems to think so.

Not exactly. Neurological activity in the brain can be a lot of different things. Sometimes it is feelings. But it is not "the mechanism for" feelings. That "mechanism" is the brain itself (along with the rest of the neural system).

Remember.... mind is what brain does.

I know.

It is important to periodically make that point because it demonstrates that your entire argument has no actual basis in evidence or reasoning from evidence. It is purely vacuous mystical speculation.

Bad poetry does not rescue a bad argument.