That is not how either Science or Philosophy work. Both start from the presumption of ignorance, Socratic doubt and the null hypothesis and falsification.
I do not know whether or not Free Will exists; if it does then it will be the first non-physical cause of a physical event, and that requires a pretty high level of evidence to support it. It will need to be decribed in function and in construction and to be understood at least as well as we know about physical causation. Additionally modern knowledge is a series of marches away from mystification and Free Will and Consciousness are the remaining mystifications awaiting proof against the odds.
That is ignoring recent advances in Neuroscience. As the specific areas of the brain involved in the experience of qualia are discovered, we are moving toward empirical determination of such. If we were to stimulate a particular region of the brain in one person and the person reported ‘hearing a musical note’ or ‘seeing the colour green’ and this was repeated for any other human brain examined, then one would have a strong empirical basis for saying that qualia were a common feature and that although we do not know what qualia are, we know how they are constructed by a brain.
Now if someone wants to say that a computer or a Chines room is experiencing qualia, we can reasonably ask for an indication of how and where these are produced. Do they have similar qualia producing areas, or are their qualia produced by a totally different mechanism.
Added to which- why has no computer ever told me about its inner feelings and experiences, or tried to change my behaviour in a wilful manner? Even a dog manages to convince me and affect me like that!
Until that happens we can only say that it seems likely that the only entities experiencing qualia are humans and possibly animals.
My answer would be that it is a reasonable assumption given all the evidence we have. Solipsism is so unattractive! Making the assumption that something organically identical to oneself is not of the same experience is a pretty strong claim given everything else we know about the universe.
Philosophically the argument is more to do with teaching people some of the problems of epistemology rather than expecting people to become solipsists.
If a computer were to be socialised in the manner that humans are, and if it were to be provided with whatever it takes humans to add meaning to the world, that is a possibility. But it remains to be proved and is not a problem of sufficient computer power- there seems to be a major input from being constructed in a particular manner (in our case by evolution) and having a learning experience with other swho are similar to us and older than us.
p.s. Where in San Diego. I am a Mar Vista, IB, and SDSU (or college as it was then) alumni.
You keep asserting that free will is “non physical.” You have repeated this any number of times. The trouble is that this isn’t my viewpoint (or, I believe, that of anyone else on the free will or compatibilist sides.)
Since I happen to believe that human volition is entirely physical, your criticism does not apply to me, and I consider your point vacated.
Grin! I’d say “probably.” I think an AI that has consciousness must also have volition.
However, as I said earlier, watch for false positives. It is (probably) possible to create a system that mimics consciousness very well – well enough to deceive any human – but which isn’t actually conscious. That leads to a very wide “phantom zone” where we are compelled to treat the AI as self-aware and having volition, without the certainty that it actually is and has.
The real joy comes at the in-between point where the system itself is deceived into thinking it has consciousness!
(Some, not in this thread, have argued that humans are in this category. We aren’t really conscious, but just think we are.)
There are many, many researchers working in the field of AI; I am sure they will succeed in creating some sort of artificial intelligence in due course, but the difficulty of reproducing the effects of billions of years of evolution make this a much greater problem than originally thought by the likes of Turing and von Neumann. Reproducing this long process of evolution might take many centuries.
But to say, like Searle, that consciousness is non-computable is just another form of dualism by the back door.
I’ll try one last time. I don’t have any problem with your position on substance. I disagree, but as I said in my second post in the thread, this is a subject on which reasonable minds have differed for centuries. What I object to is your asserting compatibilists argue an “as if” position. They don’t.
The difference is important, especially in a discussion such as this where (i) you’re holding yourself out as an expert and (ii) dealing with folks who mostly aren’t steeped in the literature. When you say combatibilists agree people don’t have free will but argue we should treat them as if they do, the natural response is to say, well, if that’s what compabilists think, they’re obviously full of shit.* But, as you know full well, they don’t assert either of those things. Rather, this is your criticism of their position and should be labeled as such.
Actually, it would be perfectly valid to argue behavior is determined but one of the determinants is treating actors as if they have free will. The Reasons Responsive theory of compatibilism, which you don’t mention. is somewhat similar.
I will say again, it all depends on the Ontology of Free Will, not on the Ethics surrounding it.
Compatibilists are arguing from an Ethical Stance- that Humans can be seen to be responsible for their actions. I agree with that.
The Question being begged is “What is responsibility?” Responsibility is obviously not an entity in the natural world, but a creation of the human mind. It does not affect the natural world, only affecting interpretation in the constructed human reality that we share.
Responsibility is an Ethical and Ontological problem.
Ethically compatibilists say that responsibility exists.
Ontologically compatibilists are speaking AS IF responsibilty exists.
I am not sure that he is saying that He is a dualist. He is, like me a naturalist. This is all a question of the difference between syntax and semantics- the Meaning of Meaning so to speak.
How should we understand that a sufficiently advanced computer had qualia? that is the root of the problem.
We know that very simple organisms are able to relate efficiently with some evidence of intelligence and limited brain structure to complex environments. We know that we have developed from such organisms. We know that we experience qualia. When in evolutionary time did this happen? And what happened?
My belief is that evolutionary processes chose the best brains at reacting to the world and this in some way worked on an underlying natural law that causes very simple qualia- emotional reaction to pain for instance. Once this simple process had been established, further experience were caused which became more complex qualia.
in seeking human consciousness I think we have become obsessed with human intelligence, whereas consciousness is not to do with high intelligence or massive complexity, merely to do with natural selection of possibilities in the universe.
I do not say that no computer will ever be conscious but I do believe it will not be to do with number crunching power (which only allows syntax) but that computers will have to ‘discover’ that part of the natural world that underlies meaning, semantics and so on. then they may begin to experience qualia. But even from that point, we do not understand how such simple experiences result in advanced human consciousness.
Here I separate from Naturalism in its material sense and believe that Modern Human Consciousness is possibly beyond evolutionary processes and that Social interaction and social semantics have now more effect on the survival of the species (ours and others) than simple DNA recombination has!
Similarly it is entirely possible that advanced computers will become so much more intelligent than humans that without developing any quali they might organise, mobilise and self replicate and out perform modern humans even with their qualia!
Humans have stepped out of natural selection in one manner, computers could do so in another!
Just making choices. Deciding whether or not to have salad for lunch. Something we do every day. And, perhaps more usefully, the thing that the obsessive-compulsive, the addict, and the depressive have less of than the rest of us.
Well, I guess that makes a lot of things “magic stuff,” because there are a lot of things I sure can’t define. Heck, that makes my cable bill “magic stuff.”
FWIW, I agree with almost all of your post to eburacum45. I just happen to disagree with you regarding human volition. So it goes.
I think PBear42 spoke truly and wisely when he observed, “This is a subject on which reasonable minds have differed for centuries.”
I agree that Laws are needed to protect some people from others and I also believe the need for Locks and guns show we are not yet civilized. I also believe is separation of church and state.
Thank you for the second paragraph. Yes, that’s my point. All I’m asking is that, in future, you start there in describing the compatibilst position. After this, it’s entirely appropriate (of course) to make such arguments and objections as you see fit. But the starting point should be the position of the opposition as they themselves articulate it. This applies to free will libertarians also.
I’m not addressing the rest as it goes to substance. As mentioned previously, I’ve decided the SDMB isn’t an efficient forum to discuss this subject. Nothing personal.
Primarily, the absurd lengths to which human minds must go to make such decisions. A transistor does it in nanoseconds. A Tarot-Deck reading takes a few minutes. But I know people who have labored for years trying to decide what to do about some difficult ethical matter.
If it were deterministic, couldn’t it at least be over and done with in a few seconds?