🚀 go-pugleaf

>Plausibility arguments are really all that one has to go on in
>theorizing about consciousness.  Solipsism, to take another
>position, is consistent with the evidence, but doesn't seem at all
>likely.

I'm not sure what you mean by "likely" here. I think that the argument
against solipsism is more based on esthetics or practicality than on
likelihood (since there is no a priori probability distribution on
possible worlds). Either we argue: For the world to be like that seems
arbitrary (which is an esthetic judgement, as far as I can tell), or
we argue: Assuming I act on the hypothesis that solipsism is right,
and it turns out to be wrong, then the consequences are much worse
than the other way around (which is a practical argument). I don't
see where likelihood comes in.

>Here are a few "principles of plausibility" that seem
>to be good constraints for a theory of consciousness to satisfy.
>
>(1) Indistinguishable brains give rise to indistinguishable states
>of consciousness.
>
>(2) Our reports of our conscious states, by and large, accurately
>reflect those states.
>
>(3) Our memories of conscious experiences aren't radically mistaken,
>by and large.
>
>And so on.

Without assuming something like (2) and (3), we have nothing to go on
in discussions of consciousness. However, I don't see the necessity of
assuming (1). Why should it be that physical states "give rise" to
unique mental states? An alternative point of view is that, rather
than there being a function from mental states to physical states,
there is simply a relation: This physical state is compatible with
(rather than "gives rise to") that mental state. Compatibility would
in general be a many-to-many relation.

In Searle's Response to the Systems Reply to the Chinese Room
Argument, Searle suggests that you might memorize the rules for
producing output based on inputs in Chinese. Regardless of whether
this is a practical possibility, it is logically possible (as is the
giant lookup table). According to one story, there are no thoughts
other than your thoughts as you try to follow a set of mystifying
rules that you have memorized. According to another story, your
actions give rise to a Chinese mind which thinks thoughts that are
expressed in Chinese.

I believe that both stories are compatible with the physical facts,
and that is the most that can be said. Contrary to how it might seem
at first, this doesn't contradict principle of plausibilty (2), that
our reports of our conscious states are reliable. Using introspection,
you find that there is a definite fact of the matter about what you
are thinking about; either you are thinking about your home in
Beijing, or you are not. However, you cannot transfer this
definiteness of thoughts to the physical object, your body, unless you
identify your mind with your body. Given a mind, there may be a fact
of the matter about what it is thinking about, but given a physical
object, there might not be a (unique) fact of the matter about which
mind it possesses.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY