Greg Detre
7 June 2001
Prof. Dan Dennett
Old Theatre, Houghton St, LSE (CPNSS)
chaired by Nicholas Humphreys
Minsky: �Dan is simply the best philosopher in the world�
Dennett does not think that there are limitations on what we can know about the inside of our skulls
Descartes� How is it possible for me to tell whether a thought of mind is true or false?
Kant����������� How is it possible for something even to be a thought (of mine)?
Turing������� How do I make a robot that had thoughts (in the way that we do) (and learns from experience)? � this is the best question
1. Turing�s is the way to answer the question
2. You�re leaving out experience!
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A team |
B team |
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Dennett Hofstadter Churchlands Rorty � |
Chalmers Nagel Searle Fodor Pinker McGinn |
it�s the fact that there are cognitive scientists as well as crypto-dualist philosophers on the B team that makes the debate worth debating
The Zombie Hunch � Extinctions of our Intuition? in Philosophy (in press)
claims that the zombie hunch deserve the same credit as the Earth going round the sun � it�s intuitively more attractive, but you come to see that it�s just not right
are we leaving anything out when we adopt the 3rd person PoV, as in Turing�s question?
heterophenomenology � Consciousness Explained, pg 72
it�s the scientific method on the 1st person PoV
start with raw data
transcripts
interpretations of speech acts
(apparent) expressions of belief
�/span> build up subject�s heterophenomological world (the world according to X)
raw data � interpreted data � convictions, beliefs, emotional reactions
all bracketed for neutrality (Husserl) = what distinguishes heterophenomenology from normal life
the speech acts constitute + exhaust the heterophenomenological world (???)
any data we can garner is included in the heterophenomenological picture we�re building up � a theorist�s fiction
why bracket? 2 failures of overlap
false positives � can have wrong beliefs about our own conscious state
false negatives � there are things about our conscious state that we are unaware of
5 or 6 degrees of peripheral vision, colour vision doesn�t extend all the way around
need to explain the aetiology of the false belief, e.g. why do people think they have good peripheral vision?
�Are people incorrigible about conscious experience?� (Noe & O�Reagan forthcoming in BBS)
false negative cases
e.g. people deny consciousness of masked stimulus
heterophenomenology � if that�s what
the subject believes, that�s what constitues their heterophenomenological world
that we have to explain
construct what they think it�s like to be them (not necessarily what it actually is like to be them)
Levine (1994) disagrees � �conscious experience themselves, not merely our verbal judgements about them, are the primary data theory must address�
but Dennett: if some conscious experiences occur unbeknownst to you, then they are exactly as inaccessible to you as the heterophenomenologist
given that we are fallible and can have false beliefs about our experience, in which case the datum is the existence of your belief, not the object/property your belief is putatively about (???)
�= all and only the data that they themselves take seriously
current issue of Cognition � neuroscience of conscious issue
Dennett � �Are we explaining consciousness yet?�
every study = according to the tenets of heterophenomenology
are the researchers here needlessly tying their own hands?
is/might there be a better way?
Ramachandran & Gregory � isoluminous background + circle
motion capture illusion � predicted it would occur from the 3rd-person, then tried it out and experienced it 1st person
qualia � accessible only from 1st person PoV
change blindness � were your qualia changing before you noticed the change? if you say:
yes � you give up something about qualia. that�s no good
don�t know � no good either. I have no first person access to my own qualia, and third-person science can�t access them either.
no � then you must accept heterophenomenology, since your heterophenomenological world hasn�t changed
caveat lector re qualia
there are some facts that are unknowable from any perspective, e.g. inert historical facts (e.g. whether the gold in my teech belonged to Caesar
are qualia like that? then the first person PoV is no better than the 3rd person � qualia are outside our ken entirely
Chalmers has taken the Zombie Hunch seriously � Chalmers as heterophenomenological subject (1996, pg 95 (1996, pg 95):
can�t tell a zombie apart from the 3rd-person
quote from Patrick Matthew, 1860, to Darwin re pre-empting the theory of natural selection
fulfilling the Philosopher�s Dream almost
Chalmers� attempt at the Philosopher�s Dream � makes no prescriptions
heterophenomenology as behaviourism?
of course it�s behaviourism � what else is there?
when behaviourism = everything internal + external, it is detectable, but this sort of broad behaviourism didn�t go down with Skinner + that narrow behaviourism
the big difference is that heterophenomenology allows for beliefs in the subjects and that they have conscious experience that is accessible to science (through speech acts etc.)
my visible field feels detailed all the way out, and that feeling must be incorrigible + TRUE???
do you believe in some form of qualia now???
he doesn�t like the name
what are Dennett�s views on ethics???
is Chalmers anti-AI???
how does he discard the argument that any rift between what we report and what the heterophenomenological approach tells us our conscious state should have been stems from eroded/mistaken memories???
what�s the difference between incorrigible + infallible???
infallible � cannot be wrong
incorrigible � cannot be corrected
is that an important/meaningful difference???
this is Dennett�s big claim � how does he substantiate it??? �given that we are fallible and can have false beliefs about our experience, in which case the datum is the existence of your belief, not the object/property your belief is putatively about�
but just because �every study = according to the tenets of heterophenomenology�, doesn�t mean that neuroscientists are looking at the hard mind-body problem, of how/why conscious experience arises out of (some) matter???
what about the lack of vividness of memory???
can I answer that there are qualia that even I don�t know about???
perhaps they don�t belong to me, in the same way that external conscious experience doesn�t belong to me � but then they�re not really my qualia at all, so that�s no good
what about if they�re just highly transient??? then we�re back to the memory question again
am I sure there are no zombies??? I was, during the talk
are we taking the Intentional Stance (as nothing more than a convenient, but ultimately misleading shortcut) when dealing with other humans � that is, do other humans genuinely possess intentionality, or is that just a good way of interpreting and making intelligible their behaviour???
how does heterophenomenology help with the problem of other minds???
well, it assumes that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it�s a duck (i.e. conscious), right???
zombies even with new physics???
does the zombie believe it has beliefs???
no, according to Chalmers, because beliefs need conscious experience � he rejects the intentional stance as a definition of belief
but they�d be the same to us, as 3rd person
in my opinion, if you had a completely low-level copy, then it wouldn�t be a zombie � my considered opinion
do beliefs require conscious experience??? if not, is there more to conscious experience than just beliefs???
isn�t reportability mostly OK, but still at least one remove away from the actual conscious experience (language/measurement, memory)???
what will heterophenomenology ultimately allow us to do??? will it help with the mind-body problem???
so where does Chalmers think consciousness arises from???