It was more about what aspects of the future we are capable of predicting thanks to natural sciences, and what aspects of the future are valuable to predict.
It might just be that predicting the outcome of an interaction of two molecules is itself less valuable than, say (can’t think of anything better, feel free to be more creatively specific here), predicting whether we flourish or suffer. The former is easier, sure, but is that enough to make it valuable? That the latter is more important is an assumption, but I think not an unfounded one.
So first of all, "natural sciences" is redundant. All science is natural. There is no unnatural science.
And second, what makes you think that predicting how molecules interact is detached from predicting whether we flourish or suffer? We are made of molecules. Whether we flourish or suffer is ultimately determined by what our molecules do. There are people alive today who would not be if we had not been able to make reliable predictions about how mRNA molecules were going to interact with the molecules in our bodies to produce antibodies (which are molecules) to fight the covid virus (also made of molecules).
> All science is natural. There is no unnatural science.
It is a well defined category. Sciences that do not fall into the tiny subset of natural sciences include, among others, mathematics, logic, sociology, economics, psychology, and the mother of all sciences—philosophy.
> Whether we flourish or suffer is ultimately determined by what our molecules do
Not really—unless you can prove that consciousness arises from said molecules (which not only is yet-unproven but is also arguably unfalsifiable within the framework of scientific method), it is only your opinion and not a scientific fact.
No, it isn't. I know that it is commonly considered to be a well-defined category, but it's not. Philosophy is not a science at all. Neither is math, except insofar as it is studied as a natural phenomenon. The so-called "social sciences" are commonly set apart in a different category, but in the context of your comment:
> It was more about what aspects of the future we are capable of predicting thanks to natural sciences
that a distinction without a difference. It is not the distinction between "natural" and "social" that matters in this case, it is the distinction between areas of intellectual inquiry that employ the scientific method vs those that don't.
If you want to go there then sure, in some ways it is not. It is what natural sciences branched off of. Generally speaking, it is superior to sciences in that they are informed by it. Not sure if it’s splitting hairs in context of our discussion.
> Neither is math
Oxford dictionary starts with “it is a science…”, why do you say it is not?
> The so-called "social sciences" are commonly set apart in a different category
A different category from natural sciences. You’re seeing it now!
> it is the distinction between areas of intellectual inquiry that employ the scientific method vs those that don't.
Let’s talk about scientific method.
Scientific method is a key instrument of natural sciences, but it cannot make a statement about “underlying reality”, say materialism or physicalism vs. idealism. It can just make testable observations and predictions; the exact underlying territory can never be produced using scientific method—there can only be speculative takes on it, produced by our fallible human minds, informed by applying scientific method in particular ways guided by our fallible human minds.
A position that molecules is what causes us to flourish or not, meanwhile, is textbook physicalism. It is a particular philosophical view that is not within the scope of natural sciences to prove or disprove. The article you linked to actually supports this argument. See myth #2.
It does not make natural sciences deficient, but it highlights what they offer and what they by design don’t. Philosophical positions such as monistic idealism or monistic materialism have both equal capability to be true, and unfortunately both are (as of now) beyond what scientific method can prove or falsify.
Yes, that's true. But it wasn't science before the branching, and what is left over after the branching is not science either.
> Oxford dictionary starts with “it is a science…”, why do you say it is not?
Math is a tool used by science, but it is not in and of itself a science (with a few exceptions). The reason is that this discussion is taking place within the context of a specific definition of science that requires experimental data to verify or refute hypotheses. Math generally doesn't fit that definition.
> Scientific method ... cannot make a statement about “underlying reality” ...
Yes, all that is true.
> A position that molecules is what causes us to flourish or not, meanwhile, is textbook physicalism.
No, it's a testable hypothesis with a lot of supporting evidence.
> what is left over after the branching is not science either
Yes. I’d say philosophy is not science in the same sense music is not drumming.
> this discussion is taking place within the context of a specific definition of science that requires experimental data to verify or refute hypotheses
Did we agree to that specific definition? If so, my bad, but I don’t recall that. Also, what are some other definitions available?
In any case, there are natural sciences, and there are other kinds of sciences that are not less important, and potentially more so depending on one’s values.
> No, it's a testable hypothesis with a lot of supporting evidence.
Not as far as I know.
There are plenty of so-called “proofs” that include things like cutting or stimulating parts of the brain seemingly causing changes in mind-state, but they obviously miss the part where the very cutting or the stimulating is caused by mind-state in the first place—i.e., they all presuppose materialism without even realizing it.
What is a way to definitively prove or falsify idealism or materialism that is available to us, without presupposing either idealism or materialism in the first place?
What is one piece of hard evidence that actually works as evidence to prove materialism without presupposing materialism?
> Philosophy is not science in the same sense art is not music
No, that is not at all the same thing. There was not a field of human intellectual endeavor called "art" which begat music. A much better analogy is that philosophy is not science in the same sense that alchemy is not chemistry, or astrology is not astronomy, or banging on a hollow log with a stick is not playing the violin.
> Did we agree to that specific definition?
This discussion is taking place in a thread whose topic is a blog post which defends that specific definition. So no, we didn't explicitly agree to it, but it's a reasonable assumption, a generally understood part of the HN social contract.
> What is one piece of hard evidence that actually works as evidence to prove materialism
Materialism is not the testable hypothesis. The testable hypothesis is "molecules is what causes us to flourish." And I should have said "falsifiable" not testable. The way you falsify it would be to demonstrate some aspect of human flourishing that cannot be explained as the actions of molecules.
> A much better analogy is that philosophy is not science in the same sense that alchemy is not chemistry, or astrology is not astronomy
Not at all. Astrology is irrelevant, whereas philosophy is quite relevant in the sense that it is an integral part of scientific activity and takes place despite certain people forgetting that they do it even while doing it.
> or banging on a hollow log with a stick is not playing the violin
Yes, I actually edited my comment to provide a better analogy: philosophy is not science in the same sense music is not drumming.
> Materialism is not the testable hypothesis. The testable hypothesis is "molecules is what causes us to flourish."
These follow from one another. If you claim that molecules are the cause of some phenomena taking place in your mind, which flourishing, self-actualisation, happiness, suffering, etc. all are, then you implicitly claim materialism.
For anyone who claims that mind-state is the cause, you can claim that it is in fact the consequence (or an illusion, as some do), and it will be your word against theirs.
That’s where it stops being a scientific experiment and becomes a higher-level philosophical argument where testability is, unfortunately, out of our reach, but we can still judge theories by their elegance and logical soundness.
> The way you falsify it would be to demonstrate some aspect of human flourishing that cannot be explained as the actions of molecules
As above, if you claim that there is some aspect of flourishing that cannot be explained as “actions of molecules” (I would be hard-pressed to ascribe any agency to molecules, personally) you would likely be implicitly adopting monistic idealism (or some sort of dualism, which I personally find dubious due to even more drastic lack of elegance than in monistic materialism), and that is not testable since to anyone who claims that mind-state is the consequence you can very simply point out how it can be the cause—and since neither way can be proven or disproven, it is once again a higher-level philosophical argument.
That argument is more fundamental and more important, actually, than predicting some molecular activity or the like; and before you object, using the fact that scientific method is as of now limited and unable to provide evidence either way can’t serve as a justification for calling the question itself unimportant if we were to have this discussion with any rigour and truth-seeking determination (as opposed to mere desire to socially signal or appear “right”).
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.
> you implicitly claim materialism
Nope. In fact, I actually do claim all of these things while at the same time denying materialism because quantum mechanics. Molecules don't really exist, just like the force of gravity doesn't really exist. Both are just very good approximations.
> For anyone who claims that mind-state is the cause
The cause of what?
You don't have to get into consciousness at all. Food and water, for example, are clearly integral to human flourishing, and you don't have to get into any metaphysical woo to defend that position.
> That’s where it stops being a scientific experiment
That's just nonsense. Malnutrition and dying of thirst obviously yield to straightforward scientific inquiry.
Like I said, if you want to argue otherwise, the burden is on you to demonstrate some aspect of human flourishing that does not yield to scientific inquiry. I'll bet you can't do it.
If you forget to drink water while working for many hours, you may feel dehydrated and poorly. If you remember to drink water, you feel better.
Drinking water clearly causes a change in your mind-state. However, drinking water is something you decide (or forget) to do, i.e. it’s obviously caused by your mind in the first place (or that of your partner or another person helpfully bringing you a glass). However, we can further speculate that said mind is, in turn, affected by certain chemical interactions (approximations of something external to those minds), and even call the general existence of minds into question. Yet further, we could treat that chemical reaction as, in turn, derivable from (or be a representation of) mind-states, yours or otherwise, further down the line.
You can see how as far as scientific method is concerned this gets nowhere very quickly—it’s unfalsifiable and outside of what scientific method is equipped to help us with (not a bug, since it’s by design).
Naively, it seems that best we could do is 1) acknowledge that uncertainty and perhaps 2) pick a point in the above chain, reason why to believe that point is not arbitrary, and explicitly adopt that as a philosophical position.
> I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.
We can simply do that, though I did attempt to provide a justification for my position. Philosophy, whether done explicitly or implicitly, always informed the application of scientific method.
> we can further speculate that said mind is, in turn, affected by certain chemical interactions (approximations of something external to those minds)
Indeed, there is quite a bit of evidence to support this hypothesis.
> and even call the general existence of minds into question
Well, you can call anything into question, but there is quite a bit of evidence for the existence of minds.
> we could treat that chemical reaction as, in turn, derivable from (or be a representation of) mind-states
Well, I suppose we could, but again there is quite a bit of evidence that the causality of that particular mechanism (if I'm understanding you correctly -- you are being pretty imprecise here) runs in the other direction.
> You can see how as far as scientific method is concerned this gets nowhere very quickly
Sorry, no, I don't see that at all. AFAICT the way in which minds arise from chemistry is pretty well understood. In fact, it is sufficiently well understood that we are on the cusp of being able to create artificial minds that are not based on chemistry.
> Naively, it seems that best we could do is 1) acknowledge that uncertainty
Sorry, no, I don't see any uncertainty to acknowledge.
> I did attempt to provide a justification for my position.
> there is quite a bit of evidence that the causality of that particular mechanism (if I'm understanding you correctly -- you are being pretty imprecise here) runs in the other direction.
Not if you look thoroughly. There is no proof that causality runs[0] in either direction, and in all likelihood it would remain so for as long as the hard problem is unsolved.
> AFAICT the way in which minds arise from chemistry is pretty well understood.
That would be immensely groundbreaking, absolutely historical news that would eclipse LLMs, reverberate HN for months and would not pass either of us unnoticed.
> In fact, it is sufficiently well understood that we are on the cusp of being able to create artificial minds that are not based on chemistry.
Have you heard about the so-called Chinese room experiment or the concept of a philosophical zombie?
> I don't see any uncertainty to acknowledge.
That’s because you have adopted a philosophical position implicitly.
> Yes, but I think your attempt has failed.
You have not even attempted to object by providing a counter-argument, though.
[0] Side note: even though I am guilty of thinking that way myself, I find the whole notion of “causality running” smelling of Cartesian dualism and another inheritance of our religious past. A theory presupposing the existence of two different kinds of things (as in this case, mind vs. physical), while useful in its own ways, is necessarily less elegant than a theory that can manage with one.
Yes, it was [1]. Still is, as this work is on-going [2].
> Have you heard about the so-called Chinese room experiment or the concept of a philosophical zombie?
Yes. Have you heard of the Turing test?
For the record, the Chinese Room is based on the false premise that the Chinese Room is possible. It isn't. The person inside the room would be dead long before it emitted its first symbol. And philosophical zombies are IPUs [3].
> That’s because you have adopted a philosophical position implicitly.
No, I have adopted a philosophical position explicitly [4].
> You have not even attempted to object by providing a counter-argument, though.
Perhaps you are unaware that I am the author of TFA [5]? Did you read it?
If you don’t like the word “proof” then replace it with the phrase “conclusive evidence”.
> Yes, it was [1]. Still is, as this work is on-going [2].
Sorry, how does any of that show that “minds arise from chemistry”?
> Yes. Have you heard of the Turing test?
Yes, and a Chinese room would pass the Turing test by its very definition.
> The person inside the room would be dead long before it emitted its first symbol.
Replace the person with a powerful CPU.
> And philosophical zombies are IPUs [3].
In this context a philosophical zombie is an instance of a Chinese room, which are fairly real things. Take a sufficiently advanced LLM, or an emulation of human brain, and you get one. (Showing that it is not a philosophical zombie would call for some conclusive evidence showing that the phenomenon of consciousness is caused by whatever entities feature in models from today’s natural sciences—so that manipulating them in a particular way is enough to cause consciousness to magically arise.)
> Perhaps you are unaware that I am the author of TFA [5]? Did you read it?
That slipped my mind after a while, but I don’t think it invalidates the discussion. I skimmed it back when it was posted and generally I have been familiar with the illusionist takes on consciousness for a while. As monistic materialism (as well as cartesian dualism) in general, they always strike me as inelegant and needlessly contrived. (When competing hypotheses cannot be falsified due to limitations of scientific method, beauty and elegance remain as qualities we can judge them on, and I find that beauty inversely correlates with the number of entities a given hypothesis must magically conjure into existence.)
> how does any of that show that “minds arise from chemistry”?
That's too long a story for an HN comment (which is the reason I referred you to an entire field of study) but the TL;DR is that the only reason we have to believe that minds exist at all is the I/O behavior of things that purport to have them (i.e. people) and that I/O behavior can (as far as we can tell) be completely accounted for the the behavior of neurons, which can be completely accounted for by chemistry.
> Replace the person with a powerful CPU.
That completely eviscerates the experiment. The whole point of the Chinese Room is that there is a conscious person inside who does not speak Chinese. Without that, the Chinese Room is just a run-of-the-mill AI.
> Showing that it is not a philosophical zombie would call for some conclusive evidence showing that the phenomenon of consciousness is caused by whatever entities feature in models from today’s natural sciences—so that manipulating them in a particular way is enough to cause consciousness to magically arise.
Where is your "conclusive evidence" that this "phenomenon of consciousness" actually exists?
If an AI exhibits I/O behavior that is indistinguishable from a human (i.e. can pass the Turing test) then on what basis can you call one a "philosophical zombie" and not the other?
> they always strike me as inelegant and needlessly contrived
> that I/O behavior can (as far as we can tell) be completely accounted for the the behavior of neurons, which can be completely accounted for by chemistry
Thing is, this can be explained the other way around. If neurons & chemistry were merely how conscious phenomena appear (a map of the territory), the observed outcome would not change. (Most of chemistry, physics, etc. all work equally well in that scenario, by the way, but there may be implications in other fields.)
By the way, reducing everything to I/O behaviour is also a philosophical position, I believe it’s called behaviourism.
> The whole point of the Chinese Room is that there is a conscious person inside who does not speak Chinese.
Neither does a powerful CPU/an LLM—the point of putting a slow person that doesn’t speak the language is to illustrate on an intuitive level what happens with a fast program that does the same, just in the blink of an eye.
> Where is your "conclusive evidence" that this "phenomenon of consciousness" actually exists?
You want to attribute me a claim I do not make. There is no conclusive evidence either way, and it could be impossible to obtain any (at least within the framework of scientific method). However, a theory where it does not exist has major logical flaws in my view.
> If an AI exhibits I/O behavior that is indistinguishable from a human (i.e. can pass the Turing test) then on what basis can you call one a "philosophical zombie" and not the other?
Hinges on the hard problem. If you claim consciousness does not exist, then you have your answer and I have mine, but I would object to treating it as a fact.
> What is your alternative?
I would not claim to have my own, but variants of monistic idealism as I understand them presuppose the objective existence of consciousness and go from there. I find that way we may have to magically conjure out of nothing much fewer entities and arbitrary rules, and don’t have to explain away the only phenomenon we have direct access to.
> reducing everything to I/O behaviour is also a philosophical position, I believe it’s called behaviourism
I'm not "reducing everything to I/O behavior", I'm just saying that you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior.
> the point of putting a slow person
You have completely misunderstood the point of the Chinese room. The speed at which the person operates is completely irrelevant to the argument, it is only relevant to my counter-argument. The whole point of my counter-argument is that the original argument is invalid because it ignores the speed at which a human can execute the rules. The speed matters. It's not the only thing that matters, but it's one of the things, and the fact that Searle ignores it enough to invalidate his argument.
> There is no conclusive evidence either way
There is for me. Consciousness is something I directly experience. Maybe it's different for you, but I'd be really surprised. But (and this is where I predict we will diverge) I believe that this experience is an illusion, just as my experience of motion when looking at Moving Snakes is an illusion.
> If you claim consciousness does not exist
I do not claim that it does not exist, I claim that it is an illusion. Illusions exist, they are just not what they naively appear to be.
> we may have to magically conjure out of nothing much fewer entities and arbitrary rules
What entities and arbitrary rules need to be "conjured out of nothing" to support Dennett's thesis? In fact, it's the exact opposite: presupposing the objective existence of something for which there is no evidence, and quite a bit of evidence that our perception of it is an illusion, that seems more like "conjuring something out of nothing" to me.
Why do you think it matters? If you didn’t think so, presumably you would not yourself be arguing for a particular explanation (e.g., neurons causing consciousness).
I can pick between a few reasons why it matters to me. One of them is probably similar to why you or I would think that believing or not believing in a deity matters.
> you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior.
I don’t need that evidence if I assume consciousness exists in the first place. You need it if you believe it arises from some configuration of entities in external reality.
> The whole point of my counter-argument is that the original argument is invalid because it ignores the speed at which a human can execute the rules
Why does the speed matter?
> I do not claim that it does not exist, I claim that it is an illusion. Illusions exist, they are just not what they naively appear to be.
Would it be fair to say that time-space is an illusion? It seems that “it is not what it naively appears to be” is a true statement about it, doesn’t it?
> presupposing the objective existence of something for which there is no evidence
The evidence of consciousness is empirically supplied every moment of your existence, though. Empirical evidence of anything else by definition requires consciousness, too.
> I don’t need that evidence if I assume consciousness exists in the first place.
I think you're missing the point here. Let me repeat, with some added emphasis: you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior. It's not that you have no evidence. You do. But that evidence takes the form of I/O behavior, which can be completely accounted for by physics. Yes, you can assume that consciousness is a real thing independent of physics, but you can also assume invisible pink unicorns. Neither is necessary to explain the data. The only thing that is problematic is your subjective sensation of consciousness, which kinda sorta feels like it should not be possible if physics is all there is. That's the problem that Dennett solved.
> Would it be fair to say that time-space is an illusion?
> The evidence of consciousness is empirically supplied every moment of your existence, though.
Yes, I don't deny that. And I don't deny that accounting for it is a Very Hard Problem. The fact that Dennett was able to solve it is one of the many things that made him noteworthy.
> you can assume that consciousness is a real thing independent of physics
To make that claim is to engage in Cartesian dualism, don’t you see it? I find Cartesian dualism not a particularly elegant theory (even less so than monistic materialism). If you believe you are arguing with a Cartesian dualist, then we are talking past each other.
(This is, I guess, an illustration of why I find complete lack of philosophical rigour so frustrating when arguing with monistic materialists.)
I have no idea who I'm arguing with here. And I have no idea what distinguishes a "monistic materialist" from a non-monistic materialist. AFAIK, there is dualism and there is materialism, and that is an exhaustive partition of the philosophical idea space regarding consciousness.
I also know that you think it's necessary to assume that consciousness exists rather than inferring its existence from (physical) observation, which makes you sound like a dualist to me.
(I also find it rather frustrating that you complain about a lack of philosophical rigor while at the same time being so cagey about your actual position.)
But please set me straight: what is your actual position?
It might just be that predicting the outcome of an interaction of two molecules is itself less valuable than, say (can’t think of anything better, feel free to be more creatively specific here), predicting whether we flourish or suffer. The former is easier, sure, but is that enough to make it valuable? That the latter is more important is an assumption, but I think not an unfounded one.