It seems like you are adding imaginary complications. You are a location in spacetime X/Y/Z and time if you like, but you can move around. What's wrong with moving around? You can put your head next to someone else's head so long as you can't put your head inside their head you are still you.
I define location absolutely as being at one point in spacetime. If you move you change locations. I thought this self-evident.
Just take this quote... You used the word you twice, so you are still you. You are still a location in spacetime. X0 y0 z0 = you you move x0 y0 z0 = you you take your physics with you including your origin. If you do any CNC milling work, you set an origin for each start sequence. An origin can be moved.
I'm only saying that if there was a inherent identity of those features then something would have to be unphysical. Physically they are just objective, it is the subjective side of us that I'm arguing, I have no trouble with two particles manifesting in a field, they don't necessarily need anything unphysical to them, they are simply fluctuations in a field, exactly like virtual particles, only they stay longer. It's like a whirl in a sea, the whirl is the particle and the sea is the field, the whirl doesn't have any particular identity to it. Isn't it simply that the body defines the position of the body? Where does the "my" come in? I don't see how the separateness of bodies defines which subjective should be which body. The only thing you've established is that bodies are seperated and that seperation is why two identical bodies doesn't have the same subjectivity. You haven't explained why any particular subjectivity should belong to any particular body. You haven't shown why any position should be my position, that's why I brought it up. What is it to a position in space that it could define subjectively who gets to be who? Being unique is simply one part of this, you'd have to explain how a slice of space (whatever that is), or position can define any body to have a specific subjectivity, what is it in empty space that has this property? Would you call this property of space unphysical? Can it be measured or seen in any way except subjectively?
Again, that's like asking why any particular rock should be the particular rock that it is. The question only makes sense if you are already assuming that there is some "essence of rockness" that makes a rock a rock by inhabiting some material substrate. In other words, rather than it being a question that points to the existence of some unphysical essence when considered, it is merely a question that assumes the existence of some unphysical essence from the outset. And that's what you're doing here. You're assuming, at the outset, that consciousness is something that inhabits neural architectures rather than being something that is constituted by them. You occasionally deny this, sort of, but it's evident in pretty much everything you say. If you stop doing it, and conceptualize consciousness as something that emerges, gradually, from a slice of physicality that is inherently separate from every other, then you end up with an instance of an emergent phenomenon that is inherently separate from every other. Again, it's not about spatial coordinates, it's about the inherent separateness of slices, or pieces, or whatever, of a distributed reality. You're off target, and I'm pretty sure that I've explained why several times now.
As I've said before, a rock doesn't - to our knowledge - have a specific existence, it has a objective existence. There is no subjective quality to a rock. It can't feel that "this is the rock that I am". You assume that I'm talking about general consciousness, which can emerge from neural architectures. Which would be a kind of objective consciousness. The trouble is that there is no objective consciousness, there is only subjective consciousness. Because of that it can't be constituted by neural architectures, how could it ever emerge if it was constituted? We also have the copying problem if it is constituted by neural architectures which you are avoiding by saying that it is the position or seperateness that is important and not the neural architecture, which brings us to the next argument; Seperation doesn't really help, the seperation between two objects (or slices of reality) is a mutual quality between two objects. Separation is the distance between them, it doesn't say anything about the nature of them and it isn't something "in itself". It is only a rewording of "it is what it is because it is what it is", not a explanation. What should be my target then? "it is what it is"? Ignorance? "You are seperated from anyone else, that's why you are you"? You go to great lengths in describing the obvious, yet the obvious doesn't hold the answer of why a subjective is a particular brain or neural structure or dance of chemicals. I wouldn't have started this thread if I would have settled for the obvious, it is what isn't obvious that I'm trying to make sense of. It isn't obvious simply because brains are seperated that any particular subjective should inherently be a particular brain. I'm on target, because I already accept the seperateness of brains, but I see that there must be more than that to explain subjectivity fully, I don't settle for incomplete answers, I accept that I don't know and try to see what it is that is missing. Is 1+1=3?
And as I've said before: the property of subjectivity doesn't complicate matters so long as you avoid: 1) conceptualizing an instance of it as something that is destined to inhabit a substrate rather than something that is constituted by one, and 2) conceptualizing yourself as an instance that is somehow more primary or profound than all the others just because it's you. Ummm, what? Why can't subjectivity emerge from a neural architecture? Further, subjectivity is actually an objective quality like any other in the sense that like everything else it's a real feature of reality. In other words, it is an objective fact that you have a subjective perspective. And it is also an objective fact that you're not the only one who does. I'm not avoiding anything. I have dealt with every one of your arguments head on, several times. Are you trying to deny there there is an inherent separateness to the different parts, or regions, of a distributed reality? For the umpteenth time, this is not about distance, or spatial coordinates, or precisely how far two things are away from each other. Those things are simply consequences of reality being a distribution. I've grown tired of your accusations now. Unless you can demonstrate that reality is not a distribution, you need to cut it out. It's become absurd. If you think I have settled for the obvious, you don't understand a word I am saying. Perhaps that is partly my fault for not flawlessly communicating some important subtleties, but to be honest you keep pissing me off with your bullshit accusations and so I'm feeling less inclined to try harder as time goes on. Again, you can believe whatever you want to believe. I'm really not trying to do damage to your world view. In fact nothing I have said definitively rules out the possibility of a soul, or whatever. What I am doing here is demonstrating that if you discard some of your premises, and conceptualize things differently, you can construct a logical and coherent metaphysical picture that includes subjectivity without having to invoke mysterious unphysical dimensions. And I am doing this not because I think I'm clued into some ultimate truth that I want to covert you over to, but because you have essentially claimed that physicalism has no room for the "self", and that you have a series of arguments that demonstrates it. You don't. What you have instead is a series of problems that only present themselves when you insist on importing certain assumptions. And you really do keep doing that, apparently without realizing.
If something emerges from something else then it isn't completely constituted by it, how could it otherwise emerge from it? In other words, either consciousness is completely constituted by neural architecture and doesn't "emerge from it", or it emerges from it and thus isn't completely constituted by it. How could you have it both ways? There are no objective facts, all facts are subjective. We assume that facts are objective when we can measure them and the measurement applies the same to all people. But all facts are subjective. There isn't even proof of a external world. In this thread I am making the assumption that everyone has a subjective, not only me (which is the only subjective I can know about), so does science of course even if it can't be proven. Of course not, where have I said that? I'm only saying that it isn't enough to explain why the inherent part (the subjective part) is specific to a certain region, in other words, to say that they are different regions isn't enough for the argument that this region is representing the subjective that you had to be. It doesn't differentiate between subjectives, it only says that they are seperated which means that the subjectives present would have to be different subjectives. To flesh it out; let's say that Region 1 represents Subjective A and one Region 2 represents Subjective B, I would ask "Why do Region 1 represent Subjective A, couldn't it have been otherwise?" And people would just say "it is the way it is, couldn't have been otherwise cause that is how it came to be." Is there a difference between being a subject of one region and being a subject of another? The only difference that I could perceive is that of characteristics of the region, not of the subjectivity. Because of this I see no reason why Subjective A should be doomed to be Region 1. I see no reason why it couldn't have been otherwise, time has already moved on and we can't reset it, but that is no reason why it couldn't have been otherwise from the start. Hey! I'm only trying to see what you mean here! You say that it is the distribution and I'm trying to understand your POV! So what is it with the distribution then? How does it explain why one part of the distribution couldn't have a different subjective than what it has? What would it mean to the distribution if it had a different subjective? It hasn't got through to me why distribution should be important, do you mean distribution on a large scale, like that of galaxies and the universe, or distribution on a small scale like on the earth, or perhaps the distribution of matter inside the brain or body? You have to see that things aren't self-explained just because you use a word like distribution, or a word like instance. What is obvious is that we are different, and sure that is because we are instances, and yes seperation is due to distribution. It doesn't explain anything else, it doesn't clarify anything, it is as if you think that "he doesn't know that we are seperated", or "he doesn't know that matter is distributed differently across the universe". I know those things, even from the start of the thread I knew those things. Those things are obvious. It isn't meant as a accusation, I think it is a over-reaction to say that it is a accusation, like you have done something wrong, I'm just saying that it doesn't explain anything other than "it is what it is because it is part of a distribution" or "it is what it is because it is a instance" or "it is what it is because it is a fundamental quality". On the top of my head I can think of two things that are special about the distribution of matter, and that is that it isn't completely uniform, which implies that there was some imbalance in the beginning of the universe. Also the distribution of matter vs anti-matter should be uniform where matter is almost completely abundant. I'm not seeing how this relates to subjectivity, it doesn't explain why a person couldn't have any other subjectivity than he does. Assumptions is of course necessary, one assumption that I perceive presents a problem is when we assume that the subjective consists of neural architecture, because that is what gives rise to the copying problem. Different assumptions give rise to different problems, and I have tried to see it through different assumptions. The only assumption I can find that doesn't present any problems is if the subjectivity (or self if you want) is partly or wholly unphysical. I've never claimed that my subjectivity should be more important than any other, I don't assume that either. I only assume that my subjectivity is more important to me though for obvious reasons.
What I'm saying is that the emergent phenomenon of consciousness is constituted by a neural architecture. Physical systems, especially highly complex and interactive ones, are perfectly capable of manifesting properties that the constituent elements do not manifest in isolation, so I don't see the problem. If you choose to persist with this objection, you're going to need to explain how other physical systems like stars can constitute emergent phenomena (such as nuclear fusion and the mass emission of electromagnetic radiation) even though the primary elements do no such thing in isolation. Umm, excuse me, but it was you who introduced the concept of objective facts in your previous post when you compared the existence of a rock to the existence of subjectivity. Listen, Cyperium, either you don't actually exist or there is indeed an external world, because I am here. I'm sorry, but I'm just no longer prepared, at this later stage in my own journey through the universe, to seriously entertain ridiculous solipsistic considerations. In fact if we can't enter the existence of an external world into this discussion unchallenged, I'm no longer interested. OK, so after all that you've entered the existence of subjectivity as an objective feature of reality into the discussion after all. :wallbang: Forget about regions already. Seriously. If you want to understand what I am saying, why do you keep ignoring me when I tell you you're thinking about it the wrong way? This is the way you should formulate your question if you want to accurately represent what I'm saying: Neural Architecture 1 represents Subjective A, and Neural Architecture 2 represents Subjective B. Now, let's ask the question again: Why does Neural Architecture 1 represent Subjective A? Couldn't it have been otherwise? The answer: no, because Neural Architecture 1 is Subjective A. They are the same thing! So how can you logically ask if it could be otherwise? This is the idea that you are refusing or failing to properly entertain and/or comprehend. When I say that reality is a distribution, I simply mean that the fabric or substance of it isn't all in the same place. It's as simple as that. Now you're going to pretend I haven't elaborated, and tried to clarify, countless times now? You claim to accept the idea that different portions of a distributed reality are inherently separate (at least insofar as they are indeed portions of a whole), but you essentially discard it again when you insist that there is a copying problem because at the core of this problem is the idea that if you duplicate a neural architecture, the duplicate wont actually be inherently separate from the original after all. This is because you believe that two identical neural architectures must somehow constitute the same instance of subjectivity. But such a position essentially reveals an a priori rejection of the idea that a neural architecture and an instance of subjectivity are the same entity. But, assume that they are. Try it. What you end up with, from there, is simply a duplicate instance of subjectivity, and both will carry on till the cows come home about being who they are. But as I have explained earlier, more than once, I think there are extremely good reasons for believing that perfect duplicates aren't even possible anyway, and so I reject your assertion that I am required to assume that they might be. In fact since you're the one who is claiming to have toppled the legitimacy of any and all physicalist stances, it's actually up to you to demonstrate, conclusively, that perfect copies are indeed possible. But whether you do or don't, I'll remind you again that it doesn't actually matter. Whether I get to use one argument or two, I can still effectively tackle your grandiose claim.
And they all constitute phenomena that can be measured as such. How can you measure subjectivity when the very act of measuring it would require it to be objective? Yes, objective facts are those that we can measure, in reality that there is such a concept of objective facts hasn't been proven. I'm only trying to make you see the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, I have to assume objectivity of course, yet I also have to assume that subjectivity exists in a way that can't be objectively measured (as it then wouldn't be subjectivity). That the external world doesn't exist isn't a belief of my own, I just say that it can't be proven! If science should only claim things that can be proven then they wouldn't claim a external world. It can't be objectively measured, only subjectively can I find feelings and other such things. There is a problem of subjective "qualia" that science just can't measure, thus we can't really say that subjectivity is a objective feature. At least what is objective should be able to be measured. So I believe that everyone has a subjective, but not that it can be measured and I wouldn't call it objective if it can't be measured. In reality there would have to be some objective part to subjectivity, but this, in my view, requires something unphysical that can't be measured (and above all; can't be copied). Because the way you think I should think doesn't work for me. I, on the other hand, think that you are thinking about it the wrong way. It's a discussion where we have different ways of thinking. You can argue all you want that your way of thinking is correct and not my way of thinking. I present problems with your way of thinking and you dismiss them giving arguments that themselves have problems, and in my view doesn't solve the problems. Why shouldn't I be free to tell you that without you thinking that I accuse you and stuff. I could equally well say that you accuse me of being solipsist and whatever, but I don't think it's fruitful. If this word "goobel" is Subjective A (even though it is simplified to a great length), how come this second word "goobel" is Subjective B? That they are seperated doesn't distinguish Subjective A from Subjective B, it only makes them seperated. When you say architecture, then that is the same as the assembly of a word, it would take eons to copy a neural architecture exactly through natural processes, but it isn't impossible, there are ideas of "mind uploading" where any architecture could be simulated through super-computers and if the world is all physical then it should be able to be simulated. We could also develop technologies to copy materials atom by atom in the far future. I understand that you are hesitant to simplifying the neural architecture, but that's really all there is, there is basically no difference to a word of letters or any simple construction when it comes to copying it. Copying it is simply a matter of "how hard it would be" not that it would be impossible. I also don't think that the entire neural architecture of the brain would have to be copied, it could probably be only a small part of it. There is also a possibility that the architecture could be simplified to represent the same subjectivity. And this somehow defines that brain 1 should be subjective A? Haven't I made my points clear? We are in a discussion, everything isn't about the way you clarify your points, you have to see my points as well. I try to clarify my points in many ways, yet all you say is that I haven't understood your points. This is a mutual exchange, we have to understand eachothers points. If two identical neural architectures doesn't constitute the same instance of subjectivity then the instance of subjectivity isn't constituted by neural architecture. Neural architecture may very well be the foundation of subjectivity as a concept, but how does it define any specific instance of it. The instance must then be defined through other means. There can be no duplicate instances of subjectivity, that would be a paradox. I can't be two at the same time. What do you mean toppled the legitimacy of any and all physicalist stances? That's absurd. I'm only saying that two physical objects can be constructed in the same way. Duplicates aren't unknown in physics. Just look at LEGO, or look at computer programs that you can copy yourself, it's a copy of physical information, of assembly or of construction. EE <--- this is two copies of the letter E. I hope so...
Again, subjectivity is an objective feature of reality. In other words, it's a feature of reality that exists independently of anyone's mere opinion about whether it does or not. In that sense, it's just like any other feature of the universe. All I am trying to do with this point is establish that instances of subjectivity (or examples of entities that experience reality) are actually real features of the external world rather than figments of your imagination. It might seem obvious, but you really do need to keep this in mind more than you seem to. As above, there is! It doesn't have to work for you. I'm not trying to get you to convert to my way of thinking. I am merely trying to get you to entertain the ideas that I am presenting so you can see for yourself that subjectivity doesn't actually demolish physicalism. For all I care, you can go back to believing in the invisible pink unicorns of Jupiter after that if you like. Again, any two objects, whether they are rocks or neural architectures, and whether they are identical or not, are inherently separate by virtue of being different portions of a distributed reality. Prove it. Prove that it is possible for two exact copies of a human brain to exist, right down to the quantum states underlying their construction and their possible entanglements with a potentially infinite number of variables. All there is to suggest that such a thing is possible is speculation. And speculation is fine if we're just exploring ideas, but it's insufficient if you are trying to demonstrate the truth of an argument. If you work with the premise that a neural architecture and an instance of subjectivity are the same thing, then of course it does! But you're refusing to do that. You keep defaulting to the assumption that an instance of subjectivity, or consciousness, is an entity that inhabits a brain. You'll never be able to see through to the other side of this unless you manage to overcome that. They key insight that you're missing, and that I eventually stumbled upon (after thinking pretty much exactly like you for ages) is that this is actually a form of solipsism. You think it's impossible for there to be two Cyperium's at once because you believe that "you" would then somehow have to be both of them. But there's really no justification for that. If you were duplicated, there would simply be two yous, not one you residing in two brains simultaneously. Why? Because if you really think about it, the equivalent of this apparent paradox, as you call it, is already staring you in the face in the form of every other person who exists who isn't you. I mean sure, everyone else has different memories and different personalities, but at their cores is the same generic phenomenon. Think about it this way: run the thought experiment again, but instead of making an exact copy, fiddle with the resulting neural structure just enough to change a single memory. After all, memories aren't part of the core consciousness, they are simply accessed by it. Still end up being both at once would you? How about if you alter all the memories, and even some of the architectures where certain personality traits are encoded? If you take this process far enough, you end up stripping away everything but the core, and once you've done that, how does it differ from any other? This, at least, could go in one or two interesting directions depending on what you reply with. I am simply referencing your assertion that physicalism has no room for subjectivity.
I believe that too, but in my opinion things that are objective should be able to be measured so that there is proof to anyone who wants to examine it. Subjectivity doesn't have this proof (at least not until we know how the brain produces it), but is a experienced-based objectivity. Such as "I believe that everyone has a subjectivity because they act and look like I do (and have pretty much the same brain structure)", it is a assumption (which indeed has a lot of merit). It's basically the same as saying "if it looks like it and acts like it then it is it". Why does everything real has to be external? All I know is that we see grey matter in the brain, where are all the colors? Where are all the shapes? Where are all the sounds? In my opinion these questions are enough to see that information of the world, which in itself is equivalent to mere signals, are manifested in a way that can't be seen in the external world (by externally examining the brain and the reactions). You could for instance measure the part of the brain responsible for sight and show the results on a monitor (this has been done with success in experiments), but there is no "monitor" in the brain where the results are shown (as is - the image that we experience). The argument above, with your possible counter-argument is capable of running in a endless loop so I won't go too much into that, I just wanted to state why I am so confident that there must be a internal world seperated in quality from the external. Sure enough it has some objectivity to it, but not in a sense that it can be measured externally to be counted as scientific proof, which is basically what I'm referring to as objective in earlier posts. Everyone has proof of their own subjectivity, but how to prove that another is subjective? Yes, objective as in "I assume that everyone has a subjectivity because I have", but not objective as in "can be measured so that everyone knows that everyone else has a subjectivity". When I argued solipsism in the sense that "there is no proof of an external world" it was only to illustrate the problems we have of measuring subjectivity, not that I myself believes that there is no external world. I think that subjectivity is the manifestation of meaning inherent in the external world or/and as "wholes" of it, to have a assembly of parts is one thing, but to have a whole of that assembly is another, imho. Physics that can be measured is the parts, the whole can then be described or shown on a monitor, but it isn't available for direct detection as is seen subjectively. The unicorns aren't pink, they are red and they hide in the red spot. I didn't say that it demolishes physicalism, it just isn't a part of it. Physicalism when it comes to subjectivity is the idea that everything is observable or deduced by the tools of physics, why does everything necessarily has to be observable? Isn't there a greater chance that we simply only see observable things because they are observable, and that there can be any number of things that aren't observable (externally that is). Many possibilities are reduced simply because we can't observe them, as if observation where some kind of condition for existence. It is of course a necessity of science to deal with observable things, and I respect that, at the same time I don't think that subjectivity is observable (without being it of course). Seperate, yes, but not defined to be any particular subjectivity. Are a subjectivity defined by seperation alone? It is a matter of how exact we would like to be, there's no rule in science that says that it is impossible. The width of a hair has pretty much the same relation to the size of the universe as it has to the planck length when it comes to how many times the hair can be multiplied and divided to match both. So I would say that it is practically impossible in a finite time/universe to duplicate the brain if we have to go down to quantum states and all the way to the very core of physicality (which is basically the planck length). I might stretch this as far as agreeing that everything is seperate physically because of this (I especially thought the entanglement argument was good, it could have the potential to make things truly unique as each particle was entangled to pretty much random other particles in the beginning (random in the scale of "all particles in the universe" is a pretty good obfuscater to create a unique "ID") - though I have doubts that subjectivity goes that far down, most scientists seem to think that subjectivity is a macro/micro phenomena and not all the way down to quantum. I would think that it depends on how far down the scale we think that subjectivity arises, do you think a rock has a subjectivity? I don't think that there would be much difference measuring quantum phenomena in a rock than it is in a brain, I would as such not think that there is a difference between a rock and a brain on the quantum scale (not by merit of being a rock or a brain - in other words; a rock and another rock would be as different as a rock and a brain). Scientifically it seems that subjectivity arises from macroscopical features in the brain, rather than quantum mechanical. In my thinking being something is inhabiting something if the nature of the external observable existence - as we can see a rock without being it, is different in nature of actually being the thing. This, in my view, is the case with subjectivity, as many things subjective seems different in quality from things objective, such as sound merely being waves of air pressure, or that light are simply electromagnetic vibrations. Things we measure are different in nature from things we experience subjectively in, as it seems, a very fundamental way. Just take the difficulty of seeing other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, we only see the visible part, yet we know that there has to be a subjective representation of the other parts as well (as many animals can detect other parts of the spectra), things that we simply can't even imagine because our brain aren't wired for it, and our eyes are only capable of detecting the visual spectrum. How can we then describe the new colors by simple measurement? It might not even be described as a color, but as a completely different subjective phenomena that we don't know the nature of. It is things like this that lead me to believe that there are more than what can be detected by scientific means. It is funny how we can have the same idea but different conclusions. I have, at many times, pondered the idea of a generic subjectivity, one subject present in many bodies and thus having its own perspective and all that. This, as you say, wouldn't even require the copying problem, the copying problem is simply a easier way to show this to people that might not understand it, and is also a argument if subjectivity (if being unique) goes only to a macro/microscopic scale (thus being capable of being copied without worrying about entanglement). Yes, this is the "riddance" of the copying problem for people who understand it. The copying problem is only a way to make it easier to understand this very same thing. That even though people are exactly alike (or not) they wouldn't share their subjectivity with other bodies, thus needing a reason why a certain body is the subject. So my answer to that question is that they don't. In other words, that there is no physical definition that distinguishes between me and you. To realise that is to realise that there is something unphysical so I don't really see where the dots fail to connect... (don't mean to be rude, if you understand this then you really should understand my pov, I don't think I can explain it any better than you just did). Perhaps to illuminate it more clearly (how I interpret it) is that the self is different from the constitution of subjectivity (if regarded as a general phenomena). Subjectivity requires a self though, but I don't believe that the body defines any definite one, it only constitues subjectivity generally without specification of a self to be that subjectivity. Because of that I don't refute all parts of physicalism though Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!, perhaps it might seem that way sometimes but I do think that there is a fully material side to the universe but that this doesn't mean that there isn't a different side to it when it comes to things like subjectivity. A rock could, for all I care, be fully material.
What possible justification could I have for believing that a rock has anything resembling a mind, and therefore a perspective? It doesn't have anything resembling a neural architecture, does it? And since I have been suggesting this whole time that instances of subjectivity and neural architectures are essentially the same thing, it shows you haven't really been paying attention to what I've been saying. And if you're not going to pay attention, this whole discussion is pointless. Really? And what do these macroscopic features consist of? Nothing? No, they are fashioned out of the same substance that everything else is fashioned out of. We might be dealing with a physical system that is more classical in nature, but it is still constructed out of quantum-scale components, and it certainly hasn't been established that quantum behaviour is necessarily suppressed entirely. In fact there are theories that suggest that consciousness is ultimately the result of a form of quantum processing (for example: Orchestrated objective reduction). In other words, since consciousness and matter are irreconcilably different, they are irreconcilably different. Really, that's what your argument looks like to me. Lot's of pronouncements and appeals to how things "seem", but nothing beyond that. Did you read through this thread? Of particular relevance are the parts of the discussion that touch on exactly what matter is. I'd say that like a lot of other people, it is only the definition you are working with that renders it incompatible with the seemingly unphysical dimension of experience. That's not really what I meant, but I don't want to get stuck here so I'll just move on. Bullshit. There are countless physicists in the world who are well aware that all electrons, for example, are physically identical, but feel no scientific or philosophical obligation to conclude that reality must therefore be unphysical. This is because they intuitively understand that reality is a distribution. I'm not failing to understand your position, I just don't accept it because it's based on unproven assumptions and, in my opinion, flawed reasoning. Further, you are still ignoring my comments about how it is likely impossible for two neural architectures to ever be identical. Certainly in the example under discussion it is. That sounds like nonsense to me. What entity would be having the subjective experiences if there was no "self"? Since physicalism is generally opposed to dualism, a claim that you have a philosophical argument that proves dualism is essentially a claim that you have a philosophical argument that defeats physicalism.
I'm only showing the difference between quantum scale subjectivity and subjectivity that is composed of neural architecture in order to illuminate the particular view of science that subjectivity is something that belongs to macroscopic structures. I'm aware that there are quantum mechanical theories of subjectivity but they are seen as unlikely by scientists (as the wave-function due to interaction with the environment collapses at much smaller scales than required in order to affect macroscopical neural processing). The further down we go the less differentiated things become, the atom doesn't know if it is within a brain or if it is within a apple, even large groups would know no difference, it is only on larger scales where we can begin to discern the brain from the apple as a collection of atoms, the same should hold true to neural architecture which we know has a effect on subjectivity so for both to have a effect on subjectivity one would need to be able to have a effect on the other which isn't completely disproven, but unlikely. Of course they are fashioned out of the same substance as everything else, however, if things going on in the quantum scale can't effect macroscopical structures that we know is associated with subjectivity and consciousness, then what is the relevance of it? If indeed sound is a fundamental property outside of its nature of a vibration of air-pressure (or vibration of density in materials) then that property would still be different in quality from its nature as a vibration of air-pressure and the vibration of air-pressure is the only thing we can measure, the sound has to be experienced subjectively. We have no way of measuring the subjective quality of sound. If the definition of physical itself is that it should be able to be measured or at least be objectively quantified then how could what is defined physically as matter account for what is by definition subjective and thus not objectively capable of being measured? Might be that there is a aspect of matter which we cannot measure and that accounts for subjectivity, but then that is a unphysical aspect. It is because there are fundamental properties that are deemed to be physical by simply virtue of existence, while we don't understand how something can have virtue of existence, identical or not. The recognition that although particles are physically identical still are being seperated are not needed to ask the fundamental question of existence itself. It isn't necessary to invoke the "sameness" of particles in order to ask the question and I guess that it hasn't been invoked because of that. I would really like to know how reality can be a distribution without anything unphysical but just because the question hasn't been raised (that I know of) doesn't mean that it is irrelevant. I wasn't ignoring it but I don't see why that is important as you say that in your view subjectivity is general so whether or not they are identical is not a issue. It is only a issue for the copying problem. Subjectivity requires a self, but not any particular. So the general phenomena of subjectivity must become a individual subjectivity (a self) by simply existing. If we all have the same generic subjectivity and as you say the structures doesn't at all matter to subjectivity, then what determines which part of the subjectivity that should be me? My body is not my body, as you say that the body essentially doesn't matter as subjectivity is a generic phenomena and thus not specific to any one body but general to all, I only find myself as this body because it is the generic subjectivity that is individualised as me in this body. The process of how that individualisation from a generic phenomena can occur when the only differentiation should be the body itself (which you say doesn't matter) begs the question of how it can be a physical process even though a inevitable one (as the generic phenomena of subjectivity must inevitably be individualised as a self by simply existing). Not entirely, I don't claim to defeat everything that physicalism stand for, I simply claim that there must be something unphysical when it comes to subjectivity. It is a claim because I feel convinced about it in many ways. You could say that I have made some error in my thinking, if I have then I have yet to see it and as long as I'm personally convinced about it I will argue for it just as anyone else that has a conviction. For all I know it might be a strike of luck that I found the concept, if so then shouldn't I treat it with ever more importance? That you have found the same concept yourself doesn't that give it credibility even though you decided to change direction? It seems grandiose to think that one could overthrow all of physics, but grandiose or not the idea remains, in my view, undefeated so why should I abandon it just because it can seem grandiose to people? Science is itself grandiose, claiming one thing after another with confidence while still knowing just about nothing when it comes to subjectivity. For me the idea doesn't seem grandiose but completely natural and intuitive and not something that came with the ambition to overthrow anything but simply came with curiosity about existence and curiosity about my own and others subjectivity and how they can exist parallell to eachother.
A physicalist necessarily maintains that mind is made from something, and that that something is matter. Any accounting of an instance of it must therefore include the entirety of the physical system in question, right down to the quantum-scale components. And even if those components behave classically when organized into something like a neural architecture, if you trace the development of this architecture back far enough you will inevitably find that at some point quantum mechanics played a role in shaping it (even if only indirectly by shaping a prerequisite physical system). And in reality when it comes to the initial formation of such an architecture and especially the subsequent coalescing of a mind we're not just talking about a simple causal chain but a spectacularly complex causal web of innumerable quantum mechanically "inspired" variables that conspire to ensure uniqueness. The equation only changes by degree (and not in essence) when examining a hypothetical scenario in which a neural architecture is duplicated because you simply can't completely escape the influence of the aforementioned causal web no matter how tightly you try to regulate your parameters. Here's just one example among countless others of the sort of thing I am talking about: "External sources in the environment such as cosmic rays or internal sources such as radioactive potassium (K40) in blood can be expected to induce fluctuations in brain currents. These processes are quantum in origin, which means that they are random—at least in most interpretations of quantum mechanics. Like the fluctuations that provide for mutations in the evolutionary process, these might serve to trigger what complexity theorists call a bifurcation, when a system moves from one quasi-stable state to another. The brain could operate that way, being basically classical and deterministic but occasionally jolted by a random quantum event." - http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/is_the_brain_a_quantum_device Just because we can't measure something, or quantify it, doesn't mean it isn't physical. Or, again, do you think Thales of Miletus discovered an unphysical phenomena when he observed that lodestones attracted iron back in 600 BC (or thereabouts)? Seriously, I just don't understand why people have such a hard time learning this lesson from history. By that logic electromagnetism wasn't a physical phenomenon back in 600 BC! Did you read through the thread in question? I pointed you to it so I didn't have to rehash the whole discussion here. I'd really like to know how a distribution of matter isn't really matter simply because it is distributed. And really, we haven't even moved beyond that in this thread. I meant generic in the sense that the phenomenon of electromagnetism is generic. In other words, no matter where an instance (or concentration) of electromagnetism is located, it is the same "type" of phenomenon (but not the same instance of that phenomenon). As above, you've misunderstood. Neural architectures are essentially brains, and brains are part of bodies. If instances of subjectivity and neural architectures are the same thing (as I have been suggesting) then instances of subjectivity are part of bodies. So yes, there is indeed specificity (in much the same way that two people who own cars own specific instances of cars, even if they happen to be the same make and model). Look, I don't understand why you are arguing about this. Physicalism is, by definition, the position that only physical things exist. By claiming that this is not true your position becomes opposed to physicalism. Your stance is essentially that of a dualist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism#Mind-matter_and_mind-body_dualism Like I've said (numerous times now) you are free to believe whatever you want to believe. But for as long as you are letting your underlying assumptions show, and presenting arguments I feel compelled to respond to, I am going to be here to challenge them. That's all.
YEAR: 2213 Brain-In-A-Vat #12's beliefs about the virtual reality "movie" played from the perspective of a character named Drew Prestor, which it has experienced for 34 years: "This is my life. Mine! I'm Drew Prestor. But why am I Drew Prestor rather than someone else?" YEAR: 2247 Brain-In-A-Vat #19's beliefs about the same virtual reality "movie" played from the perspective of a character named Drew Prestor, that has also been inputted to it for 34 years: "This is my life. Mine! I'm Drew Prestor. But why am I Drew Prestor rather than someone else?" YEAR: 2281 Brain-In-A-Vat #24's beliefs about the same virtual reality "movie" played from the perspective of a character named Drew Prestor, that has also been inputted to it for 34 years: "This is my life. Mine! I'm Drew Prestor. But why am I Drew Prestor rather than someone else?" YEAR: 2315 Brain-In-A-Vat #31's beliefs about the same virtual reality "movie" played from the perspective of a character named Drew Prestor, that has also been inputted to it for 34 years: "This is my life. Mine! I'm Drew Prestor. But why am I Drew Prestor rather than someone else?" YEAR: 2349 Brain-In-A-Vat #37's beliefs about the same virtual reality "movie" played from the perspective of a character named Drew Prestor, that has also been inputted to it for 34 years: "This is my life. Mine! I'm Drew Prestor. But why am I Drew Prestor rather than someone else?" YEAR: 2383 Brain-In-A-Vat #43's beliefs about the same virtual reality "movie" played from the perspective of a character named Drew Prestor, that has also been inputted to it for 34 years: "This is my life. Mine! I'm Drew Prestor. But why am I Drew Prestor rather than someone else?" YEAR: 2417 Brain-In-A-Vat #50's beliefs about...
This gets us back to the switching matter argument, that if we switched all the matter from two brains but maintained the arrangement, would it matter? If both matter and structure are both equally important would we have created a completely new instance of subjectivity? If only matter is important then we could crush a brain and it would still have a subjective and if only the arrangement is important then it wouldn't matter if we switched the matter from two brains and the history of the matter it is made up from is irrelevant. I would think that the current idea is that it is the arrangement of matter and how it changes over time that matters when it comes to subjectivity, not the matter itself. They could observe it objectively and thus that is a measurement of the effect. How do you observe (from the outside) a feeling, or a thought? You could only hope to measure the representation of it (as chemical signals or electronical signals) not the actual feeling or thought. Could you imagine a place within matter where the world that we see was actually painted as we see it subjectively? That is a completely different concept than to simply observing a effect that can be seen by anybody. Subjectivity can only be seen within oneself. But electromagnetism isn't by definition subjective! Can you even conceive of a way to get the subjective to be seen objectively? We could potentially figure out how the structure should look like to enable subjectivity, and we could say that all people that has that structure also has subjectivity, but I can't conceive of a way to objectively show that the structure is subjectivity. I've read it through, what you are arguing at that thread is basically what you are arguing here, that consciousness fundamentally is a part of matter. I have no problem with that, however I think that it is also fundamentally immeasurable and thus shouldn't count as physical (or everything that exists would count as physical, right?). We can agree that consciousness exists as a phenomena, but I wouldn't call it physical because I don't think that it can be measured. The only way to know it is to be it. So, in other words, consciousness and subjectivity is to be something, not to measure it. That's because I think the issue of distribution is deeper than just the fact that it is distributed and it seems to go as deep as existence itself as particles that physically don't differ other than by position can exist at the same time. It has similar issues as that of two subjectivities existing at the same time. Because of that I don't want to just "move beyond it". It might be the seed of consciousness that you think is physical but I think is unphysical that makes them able to exist as their own entity (exist within so to speak). That's also what I am saying, I don't think that you experience subjectivity fundamentally different than me. However, we are arguing what makes it a instance; you have said that it is the matter that has the property of subjectivity. Does this property come in discrete parts or do matter only have this property when it is actually combined into a brain? I would guess the latter, or that this property exists but like gravity is very insignificant and only appears when combined into a brain. Is this a correct understanding? If so then the instant would be fully dependent on the pieces of matter itself and not the structure. The structure would account for the generic subjectivity while the property of subjectivity that exists in the discrete parts of matter would account for the instant. This would then mean that if we gradually switched the matter of two brains (say you and I) but keeping the general structure intact then I would become you with your memories and you would become me with mine. The world would of course tell no difference and in fact, we wouldn't either as we believe our own memories but neither of us would have actually experienced the memories that we think we did. I'm not sure I believe that matter has this property though (even if it was unphysical). The trouble is that I find it hard to see how this property could account for all subjective qualities. Perhaps if the property was "being a whole of something" and it extends so that a particle if close enough shares existence with another particle or in some other way can become a whole of a system. I have to think about it some more if I'm going to accept it. I also still have some problem with why such a gigantic set of particles would define me and how much they could differ without them being me anymore (do you see what I mean by that?), if they are collectively defining me then how far away are two subjectives from eachother so that if I loose some brain cells, or even have a brain damage that I wouldn't be me anymore but some other subject would replace me? Ok, I think I understand where you stand. I'm opposed to physicalism when it comes to the mind-body problem, I don't want to claim that I oppose all the ideas of physicalism, you did say that I claimed to have "toppled the legitimacy of any and all physicalist stances" which is why I argue about it in the first place. That's ok, I wouldn't have started this thread if I didn't want anyone to challenge me but just as I have a compelling idea in my own view, you have a compelling idea in your view, having had the view before doesn't mean that there isn't still something new to be found that you didn't find back then. I've understood that you abandoned the idea for reasons that you are explaining in this thread, we will see if those reasons is enough for me to abandon the idea, but I don't think so. It may in the end come down to personal conviction, and that's fine by me too. lol Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!, but seriously the name "Drew Prestor" or even his perspective isn't really in question, but rather why a particular subjective is a particular subjective and why that subjective is in the form of Brain-In-A-Vat #43 rather than Brain-In-A-Vat #24, even though they are experiencing the same life (as Drew Prestor) they are still different when it comes to the subjective. And if we can simulate the brains as much as to be able to convincingly make a virtual reality then shouldn't those brains themselves have a subjective?
