From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 13 Oct 92 19:22:47 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <Bw1tB7.Hx@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <7666@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>>So a lot turns on the definition of belief as disposition to 
>>behave.  For otherwise we couldn't explain what we believe
>>about consciousness merely by explaining behavior (though we
>>might still explain what we _say_).
>
>Well, the dispute about whether belief is a disposition to behave
>is largely a semantic one.

Sure, but if the "behavior" side wins completely enough they leave the
other side without any words with which to say what they want to say.
They can't talk about an aspect or component of belief any more,
because a belief is just a disposition to behave w/o any conscious
component.  So they have to resort to something much more convoluted
and indirect.

>                            Presumably we both agree that there are
>two components to mentality: (1) the causation of behaviour, and
>(2) consciousness (maybe these "turn out" to be the same thing,
>but we can't beg the question).

Ok.

>                                 So, maybe there are two
>components of belief -- the role played in the causation of
>behaviour, and its conscious feel.  It seems to me that the
>conscious feel of a belief is at best a peripheral part of it,
>and doesn't play a large role in determining what belief it is
>(many of my beliefs don't seem to have a feel at all).  

I'm not sure just what you have in mind by "conscious feel".
For instance, I can think to myself "I believe I'm in Edinburgh"
(and in fact I do believe this).  Or I can think to myself
"do I believe that I'm in Edinburgh"?.  So I have a certain 
sort of conscious, language-level access to at least some beliefs.
But does a "conscious feel" occur somewhere along the way as,
maybe, part of the belief?  I don't know.  My thoughts certainly
seem to have a feel, in the sense that it's like something to
have them.  Is your functional account of belief supposed to
what it's like to have beliefs and thoughts about them?

>>Behavior like mine might result in a different way.  Something
>>that wasn't conscious, with no experience at all, might nonetheless
>>have similar (maybe even identical) dispositions to behave.  _Those_
>>dispositions would not be because of any experience of consciousness.
>>They could be explained without involving consciousness, because
>>consciousness is not in fact involved in their production.
>>But that does nothing at all to show the same is true of _my_
>>dispositions (or those of any other conscious entity).
>
>Obviously, there's a story S we could tell to explain it's behaviour.
>Presumably that story would also apply to us -- we're physically
>identical, after all.  So it should presumably explain our behaviour.
>The only difference is that we have something extra on top; but
>I don't see how adding something could that destroy the validity
>of explanation of what was there already.

Well, I said "something", not necessarily a physical duplicate,
because I wanted to establish a more general point.  Can we agree
that a correct explanation for some effect has to identify the actual
causes of that effect (and that it's not enough to come up with some
_other_ causes that would have the same effect)?

If so, what you say above would be right only if my conscious experience
has no causal role in forming my beliefs about consciousness.  And I
think it's just false that it has no such role.  The reason I believe
that (for example) I can think "where am I?" to myself is in large
part that I do in fact think such things to myself.  Hence I believe
such thoughts are an aspect of my consciousness in large part because
they are an aspect of my consciousness.

The idea that my experience has no impact on these beliefs seems
completely fantastic to me.  And if it turns out to be true it
will be a pretty sad day for us all.

>>Suppose behavior is (entriely) physically caused.  Now, suppose
>>consciousness is a pattern of physical causation.  How could you then
>>say that the explanation of behavior needn't involve consciousness?
>
>Obviously, in that case it would be.  This discussion is premised
>on my arguments, which I'm sure you recall, that consciousness
>isn't physical.

Sure, but it helps to check from time to time whether there's any
common ground between us.

>>So far as I can tell, it simply is the case that the behavior of
>>conscious entities is caused in part by their consciousness.  This
>>leaves us a choice between (roughly):
>>
>>  1. Behavior isn't (entirely) physically caused.
>>
>>  2. Consciousness is effectively physical.
>>
>>At present, I don't think I have a strong preference between those
>>two, but I'd take either of them over an epiphenomenalism that makes
>>consciousness irrelevant.
>
>(1) implies that there are big gaps in physical causation, which isn't
>impossible but is looking unlikely.

But perhaps that'd because the gaps only occur where consciousness
is involved in the right way.  Since we spend most of our scientific
time looking at other things, maybe we just ahven't noticed.

>(2) is just wrong, because of the logical possibility of zombies :-).

Or else we have a reason to say you're wrong about the logical
possibility of zombies.

-- jd