The premise of philosophical zombies is that it’s possible for there to be beings with the same information processing capabilities as us without experience. That is, given the same tools and platforms, they would be having just as intricate discussions about the nature of experience and sentience. without having experience or sentience.
I’m not convinced it’s functionally possible to behave the way we behave when talking & describing sentience without being sentient. I think a being that is functionally identical to me except that it lacks experience wouldn’t be functionally identical to me, because I wouldn’t be interested in sentience if I didn’t have it.
thats’ the entire point. if the existence of complex unconscious behaviors (or even just computers and math) proves that information processing can be done without internal subjective experience (if we assume a stone being hit by another stone, for example, is not experienceing subjectivity), and if there is something humans do beyond what is possible for pure information processing, then that is proof that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to it. if there is something we can do that a philosophical zombie (a person with information processing but not subjectivity) could not, it is because of subjectivity/qualia, not information processing. subjectivity can influence our information processing but is not identical with it.
I think my point didn’t exactly get across. I’m not saying philosophical zombies can’t exist because subjectivity is something beyond information processing, I’m saying it’s plausible that subjectivity is information processing.
To say “a person with information processing but not subjectivity” could be like saying “a person with information processing but not logical reasoning”.
I would argue a person that processes information exactly like me, except that they don’t reason logically, wouldn’t process information like me. It’s not elevating logic beyond information processing, it’s a reductio ad absurdum. A person like that cannot exist.
I was saying philosophical zombies could be like that, it’s possible that they can’t exist. By lacking subjectivity they could inherently process information differently.
i know this is necroposting but i have to clarify.
one of the major premises of the p-zombie thought experiment is that there is nothing about information processing (AS WE CURRENTLY UNDERSTAND IT***) that entails or necessitates subjectivity. Information processing has zero explanatory ability for subjectivity. You cannot just assume that ‘subjectivity is information processing’ without proving it somehow, that’s not how science or philosophy work. Making a positive claim like ‘information theory can account for and explain subjectivity’ requires proof. and since no proof has been provided we must assume the negative claim, that subjectivity is not explained by information processing theory. If subjectivity is information processing (the way we currently understand information processing), prove it! Show your work. If you think information theory only needs trivial modifications to account for subjectivity it should be easy to elucidate what kinds of modifications those could be and what kinds of experiments we can conduct to test those modifications.
***For if information processing theory requires substantial revision to account for subjectivity, which i think is at least plausible if not obviously true at this point in history, then the claim that ‘subjectivity is information processing’ becomes vague and meaningless - we do not know what this hypothetical revised information theory looks like, what it claims and assumes as logical axioms or empirical truths, so making any statements about this hypothetical future information processing theory is completely pointless and meaningless.
You had a small fallacy in the middle, when you said “assume the negative claim”, you then made a positive claim.
“subjectivity is not explained by information processing theory” is a positive claim, but you said it was negative. I know it has the word “not” in it, but positive/negative doesn’t have to do with claims for or against existence, it has to do with burden of proof. A negative “claim” isn’t actually a claim at all.
The negative claim here would be “subjectivity may not be explained by information processing theory”. People usually have more understanding about these distinctions in religious contexts:
Positive claim: god definitely exists
Positive claim: god definitely doesn’t exist
Negative claim: god may or may not exist.
The default stance is an atheistic one, but it’s not “capital A” atheist (for what it’s worth I do make the positive claim against a theological God’s existence). Someone who lacks a belief in God is still an atheist (e.g someone who has never even heard of a theological God), but they’re not making a positive claim against his existence.
So the default stance is “information theory may or may not account for subjectivity”, we don’t assume it does, but we also don’t discount the possibility that it does as necessarily untrue, like you are.
If you notice, you made another mistake, you misread what I was saying. I never made a positive claim about subjectivity being information processing. I only alluded to the possibility. You on the other hand did make a positive claim about subjectivity definitely not being information processing.
you are focusing on minor points of rhetoric instead of engaging with my broader point and the relevant LLM discussion. I am in fact assuming the null hypothesis in this argument.
first: the null hypothesis is a general statement or default position that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena, or no association among groups.
in this case, the phenomena whose relationship is in question are information processing theory and subjectivity.
consider Hitchen’s Razor, which states that ‘what may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence’
even if your specific argument is different, the subject of the OP with which i presumed you more or less agree, argued that not only can information processing theory account for subjectivity, but that it does, and that LLM chatbots possess such subjectivity. This is asserted without proof, and according to hitchen’s razor I dismiss this pair of theses equally without proof.
as to your stance that information processing may or may not account for subjectivity, we can formulate this position as the positive claim that ‘information processing may account for subjectivity’ without losing any meaning. if nothing else, assume this is the position i am arguing against. i am not opposed to agnosticism on this matter.
i offer a syllogism:
A: if information processing can account for subjectivity, it would have done so by now - or, if it can account for subjectivity with only trivial modifications, we would have some indication of paths towards such an account.
B. we do not, in fact, have such an account within current information theory, or theoretical paths of investigation towards such an account.
c. therefore, information theory as it is today, or only trivially modified, does not account for subjectivity
Premise B is where you lost me.
The premise of philosophical zombies is that it’s possible for there to be beings with the same information processing capabilities as us without experience. That is, given the same tools and platforms, they would be having just as intricate discussions about the nature of experience and sentience. without having experience or sentience.
I’m not convinced it’s functionally possible to behave the way we behave when talking & describing sentience without being sentient. I think a being that is functionally identical to me except that it lacks experience wouldn’t be functionally identical to me, because I wouldn’t be interested in sentience if I didn’t have it.
thats’ the entire point. if the existence of complex unconscious behaviors (or even just computers and math) proves that information processing can be done without internal subjective experience (if we assume a stone being hit by another stone, for example, is not experienceing subjectivity), and if there is something humans do beyond what is possible for pure information processing, then that is proof that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to it. if there is something we can do that a philosophical zombie (a person with information processing but not subjectivity) could not, it is because of subjectivity/qualia, not information processing. subjectivity can influence our information processing but is not identical with it.
I think my point didn’t exactly get across. I’m not saying philosophical zombies can’t exist because subjectivity is something beyond information processing, I’m saying it’s plausible that subjectivity is information processing.
To say “a person with information processing but not subjectivity” could be like saying “a person with information processing but not logical reasoning”.
I would argue a person that processes information exactly like me, except that they don’t reason logically, wouldn’t process information like me. It’s not elevating logic beyond information processing, it’s a reductio ad absurdum. A person like that cannot exist.
I was saying philosophical zombies could be like that, it’s possible that they can’t exist. By lacking subjectivity they could inherently process information differently.
i know this is necroposting but i have to clarify.
one of the major premises of the p-zombie thought experiment is that there is nothing about information processing (AS WE CURRENTLY UNDERSTAND IT***) that entails or necessitates subjectivity. Information processing has zero explanatory ability for subjectivity. You cannot just assume that ‘subjectivity is information processing’ without proving it somehow, that’s not how science or philosophy work. Making a positive claim like ‘information theory can account for and explain subjectivity’ requires proof. and since no proof has been provided we must assume the negative claim, that subjectivity is not explained by information processing theory. If subjectivity is information processing (the way we currently understand information processing), prove it! Show your work. If you think information theory only needs trivial modifications to account for subjectivity it should be easy to elucidate what kinds of modifications those could be and what kinds of experiments we can conduct to test those modifications.
***For if information processing theory requires substantial revision to account for subjectivity, which i think is at least plausible if not obviously true at this point in history, then the claim that ‘subjectivity is information processing’ becomes vague and meaningless - we do not know what this hypothetical revised information theory looks like, what it claims and assumes as logical axioms or empirical truths, so making any statements about this hypothetical future information processing theory is completely pointless and meaningless.
You had a small fallacy in the middle, when you said “assume the negative claim”, you then made a positive claim.
“subjectivity is not explained by information processing theory” is a positive claim, but you said it was negative. I know it has the word “not” in it, but positive/negative doesn’t have to do with claims for or against existence, it has to do with burden of proof. A negative “claim” isn’t actually a claim at all.
The negative claim here would be “subjectivity may not be explained by information processing theory”. People usually have more understanding about these distinctions in religious contexts:
Positive claim: god definitely exists Positive claim: god definitely doesn’t exist Negative claim: god may or may not exist.
The default stance is an atheistic one, but it’s not “capital A” atheist (for what it’s worth I do make the positive claim against a theological God’s existence). Someone who lacks a belief in God is still an atheist (e.g someone who has never even heard of a theological God), but they’re not making a positive claim against his existence.
So the default stance is “information theory may or may not account for subjectivity”, we don’t assume it does, but we also don’t discount the possibility that it does as necessarily untrue, like you are.
If you notice, you made another mistake, you misread what I was saying. I never made a positive claim about subjectivity being information processing. I only alluded to the possibility. You on the other hand did make a positive claim about subjectivity definitely not being information processing.
you are focusing on minor points of rhetoric instead of engaging with my broader point and the relevant LLM discussion. I am in fact assuming the null hypothesis in this argument.
first: the null hypothesis is a general statement or default position that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena, or no association among groups.
in this case, the phenomena whose relationship is in question are information processing theory and subjectivity.
consider Hitchen’s Razor, which states that ‘what may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence’
even if your specific argument is different, the subject of the OP with which i presumed you more or less agree, argued that not only can information processing theory account for subjectivity, but that it does, and that LLM chatbots possess such subjectivity. This is asserted without proof, and according to hitchen’s razor I dismiss this pair of theses equally without proof.
as to your stance that information processing may or may not account for subjectivity, we can formulate this position as the positive claim that ‘information processing may account for subjectivity’ without losing any meaning. if nothing else, assume this is the position i am arguing against. i am not opposed to agnosticism on this matter.
i offer a syllogism:
A: if information processing can account for subjectivity, it would have done so by now - or, if it can account for subjectivity with only trivial modifications, we would have some indication of paths towards such an account.
B. we do not, in fact, have such an account within current information theory, or theoretical paths of investigation towards such an account.
c. therefore, information theory as it is today, or only trivially modified, does not account for subjectivity