Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

I'm not going to run through the whole thing--you typed a lot more than you needed to, but here's the problem for the first couple things you suggest. The objections would keep going this way throughout:
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm All the Senses are Correlated with each other. If you see a Wall
On your view, what you're actually seeing is a mental image of a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of a wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.
and then decide to run into it because you can't really believe what you are Seeing, you will find that at the moment of impacting your face into the Wall
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of impacting your face into the wall. You're not seeing/experiencing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of impacting your face into the wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a face, etc.
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm Also you will Sense that your motion has been abruptly stopped by the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually sensing is a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall with any external world.There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a body to run into a wall, etc.
Also at the Moment of impacting your face you would have had an Auditory Experience of a banging or crunching quality as your nose gets broken and flattened on the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your nose getting broken. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of your nose being broken with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a nose, etc.
Then as you look down at your shirt there will have appeared splotches of Redness of the blood from your broken nose.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your splotches of blood on your shirt. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of blood on your shirt with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have shirt, blood, etc.


And so on for every single claim.

Again, there is ZERO way for you to even begin to correlate anything with an external world, given what you're claiming about what perception is from a conscious perspective.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

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SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:54 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 3:32 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 3:10 pm You are really going off the rails with that Ideal Forms stuff. Let's take this discussion back to 21st Century understanding of things. What we do is Detect the External World, we never Observe it Directly. We know this from Science.
How? How would science know this (given the assumption that we only experience our own mind). Tell me what the first step would be.
The Big Bang happens and a new Universe is created. This Universe consists of Matter, Energy, and Space. After billions of years of complicated interactions and processes the Matter, Energy, and Space produce a planet with Conscious Life Forms (CLFs). In the course of their evolution the CLFs will need to See each other in order to live and interact with each other. But what does it really mean to See? A CLF is first of all a Physical Thing. There is no magic power that just lets a CLF See another CLF. A CLF can only Detect another CLF through some sensing mechanism which must be made out of Physical material and which uses Physical processes. There never is any kind of Seeing in the sense that we think we understand it. There is always only Detection.

So a CLF might understand that it does not ever really See another CLF, but it will still insist that it Sees the reflected Light. The CLF would be mistaken if it thinks it Sees even the reflected Light. All it can do is Detect the reflected Light. Its sensing mechanism can only produce Physical reactions, like Neural Activity, that are correlated with the reflected Light. If the reflected Light is Red the sensing mechanism will fire Neurons that only fire for Red inputs. The CLF might be able to sense that the Red Neurons are firing. So every time these Neurons fire it can report that it is seeing Red. This CLF is only sensing particular Neurons firing and is not experiencing Red like we do.

A CLF like us Sees Red as a Conscious Experience and is not aware of any Neural Activity. This Conscious Red Experience (the Experience of Redness) is how we Detect Red Light from the external Physical World. Unfortunately the Experience of Redness, at least for now, can not be found in the Brain or explained by Brain Activity. Further investigation shows the Experience of Redness cannot be found in any kind of Matter, Energy, or Space so we must conclude that it is something different than any of these things. Redness is in a whole different Category of Phenomena than any known and existent Scientific Category of Phenomena.

No matter how much we might want a Physical Explanation, it just does not exist. So for now, we have to admit that there is no Physical Process or Explanation from Science that can be applied to help us understand the Experience of Redness in the Mind. It is hoped that Science will be able to better understand Conscious Phenomena someday and that a whole new branch of Science will be created that is dedicated to the study of Conscious Phenomena.
Oy vey. An F for this assignment. I'll give you a do-over.

I only asked for the FIRST STEP. Just one simple thing. The first epistemic step re how science would know that we detect an external world, given the assumption that we are only conscious of mental content.

Fill this out, with just one simple thing:

"The first epistemic step regarding how science knows that we're detecting an external world is _________________." And then fill out the first step, and only the first step. I'm not going to assume that you're telling me the whole story, so you don't need to worry that I'll take it that way. You're just telling me the FIRST epistemic step. Simple.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by SteveKlinko »

RCSaunders wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 8:42 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 3:30 pm

And it's weird just how dense you're being about what you're saying. I can only guess that you're not really saying what you appear to be saying. Or there's at least some sort of weird cognitive dissonance between different beliefs going on here, maybe due to not really analyzing how the beliefs relate to each other (hence me leading you to water and trying to coax you to drink).

You say your senses give you a "pretty good representation." Right. We know you say that.

The problem is that given your view about what's going on re your conscious experiences, you have absolutely no way to correlate anything.

You're welcome to explain how you would begin correlating anything in order to judge that it's a "pretty good representation."

Say that we're talking about running into a wall as you mentioned earlier--or pick another example if you think you can justify it better. How would a correlation between your mental experience as your mental experience and anything else work? What would the first step be for making a correlation?
All the Senses are Correlated with each other. If you see a Wall and then decide to run into it because you can't really believe what you are Seeing, you will find that at the moment of impacting your face into the Wall you will Experience a really uncomfortable Experience. That's called Pain. Also you will Sense that your motion has been abruptly stopped by the Wall. Hmmm, you remark to yourself that you can't go through the Wall. Also at the Moment of impacting your face you would have had an Auditory Experience of a banging or crunching quality as your nose gets broken and flattened on the Wall. Then as you look down at your shirt there will have appeared splotches of Redness of the blood from your broken nose. I truly believe that after this you will have realized that the Visual Experience of the Wall may have been a pretty good representation of what was out there. Next time you will trust your Visual Experience and you will not run into this Wall. You will now know that, although what you are Experiencing is a Representation of the Wall, it is a pretty good Representation. You will probably try to run into other Walls, if you think this Wall is just a special case, and you will find that you get the same results. A Correlation starts being created in your Representational Mind, and eventually you will not want to run into Walls anymore because you will find that there are no fake Walls being Represented to you. They are all real Walls. Your Representational System is letting you move around in the World with running into Walls.
Since we all have all those exact kinds of experiences in dreams, hitting a wall, being abruptly stopped, bleeding from a broken nose, etc., why should such experience assure one there is an external reality. I still do not see how your view can avoid being solipsistic.

Just out of curiosity. would you be disappointed if you discovered the world, as you directly perceive it, is reality exactly as it is?
I would be surprised not disappointed. I'm ready for what ever solves the Conscious Experience problem. I just try to free people to think in new ways, which might be what is needed.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by SteveKlinko »

Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 10:59 pm I'm not going to run through the whole thing--you typed a lot more than you needed to, but here's the problem for the first couple things you suggest. The objections would keep going this way throughout:
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm All the Senses are Correlated with each other. If you see a Wall
On your view, what you're actually seeing is a mental image of a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of a wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.
and then decide to run into it because you can't really believe what you are Seeing, you will find that at the moment of impacting your face into the Wall
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of impacting your face into the wall. You're not seeing/experiencing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of impacting your face into the wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a face, etc.
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm Also you will Sense that your motion has been abruptly stopped by the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually sensing is a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall with any external world.There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a body to run into a wall, etc.
Also at the Moment of impacting your face you would have had an Auditory Experience of a banging or crunching quality as your nose gets broken and flattened on the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your nose getting broken. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of your nose being broken with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a nose, etc.
Then as you look down at your shirt there will have appeared splotches of Redness of the blood from your broken nose.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your splotches of blood on your shirt. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of blood on your shirt with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have shirt, blood, etc.


And so on for every single claim.

Again, there is ZERO way for you to even begin to correlate anything with an external world, given what you're claiming about what perception is from a conscious perspective.
If what you are saying is that even after that story, you still would not trust your internal Representation of a Wall then it is hopeless. That was my best shot. There is nothing I can say further. We are at an Impasse.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by SteveKlinko »

Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 11:04 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:54 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 3:32 pm
How? How would science know this (given the assumption that we only experience our own mind). Tell me what the first step would be.
The Big Bang happens and a new Universe is created. This Universe consists of Matter, Energy, and Space. After billions of years of complicated interactions and processes the Matter, Energy, and Space produce a planet with Conscious Life Forms (CLFs). In the course of their evolution the CLFs will need to See each other in order to live and interact with each other. But what does it really mean to See? A CLF is first of all a Physical Thing. There is no magic power that just lets a CLF See another CLF. A CLF can only Detect another CLF through some sensing mechanism which must be made out of Physical material and which uses Physical processes. There never is any kind of Seeing in the sense that we think we understand it. There is always only Detection.

So a CLF might understand that it does not ever really See another CLF, but it will still insist that it Sees the reflected Light. The CLF would be mistaken if it thinks it Sees even the reflected Light. All it can do is Detect the reflected Light. Its sensing mechanism can only produce Physical reactions, like Neural Activity, that are correlated with the reflected Light. If the reflected Light is Red the sensing mechanism will fire Neurons that only fire for Red inputs. The CLF might be able to sense that the Red Neurons are firing. So every time these Neurons fire it can report that it is seeing Red. This CLF is only sensing particular Neurons firing and is not experiencing Red like we do.

A CLF like us Sees Red as a Conscious Experience and is not aware of any Neural Activity. This Conscious Red Experience (the Experience of Redness) is how we Detect Red Light from the external Physical World. Unfortunately the Experience of Redness, at least for now, can not be found in the Brain or explained by Brain Activity. Further investigation shows the Experience of Redness cannot be found in any kind of Matter, Energy, or Space so we must conclude that it is something different than any of these things. Redness is in a whole different Category of Phenomena than any known and existent Scientific Category of Phenomena.

No matter how much we might want a Physical Explanation, it just does not exist. So for now, we have to admit that there is no Physical Process or Explanation from Science that can be applied to help us understand the Experience of Redness in the Mind. It is hoped that Science will be able to better understand Conscious Phenomena someday and that a whole new branch of Science will be created that is dedicated to the study of Conscious Phenomena.
Oy vey. An F for this assignment. I'll give you a do-over.

I only asked for the FIRST STEP. Just one simple thing. The first epistemic step re how science would know that we detect an external world, given the assumption that we are only conscious of mental content.

Fill this out, with just one simple thing:

"The first epistemic step regarding how science knows that we're detecting an external world is _________________." And then fill out the first step, and only the first step. I'm not going to assume that you're telling me the whole story, so you don't need to worry that I'll take it that way. You're just telling me the FIRST epistemic step. Simple.
Science would go to statistical methods. By showing statistically that people can avoid walking into Walls they will have proven that we are detecting the External World of Walls pretty good. Eventually they will discover that people will almost 100% of the time be able to avoid Walls. You do not need to See Walls as they are in a Naïve Realist way to avoid them. It isn't even logical that there can be no Detection Surrogate that will accomplish the same thing as Naïve Realism.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

SteveKlinko wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 12:52 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 10:59 pm I'm not going to run through the whole thing--you typed a lot more than you needed to, but here's the problem for the first couple things you suggest. The objections would keep going this way throughout:
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm All the Senses are Correlated with each other. If you see a Wall
On your view, what you're actually seeing is a mental image of a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of a wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.
and then decide to run into it because you can't really believe what you are Seeing, you will find that at the moment of impacting your face into the Wall
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of impacting your face into the wall. You're not seeing/experiencing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of impacting your face into the wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a face, etc.
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm Also you will Sense that your motion has been abruptly stopped by the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually sensing is a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall with any external world.There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a body to run into a wall, etc.
Also at the Moment of impacting your face you would have had an Auditory Experience of a banging or crunching quality as your nose gets broken and flattened on the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your nose getting broken. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of your nose being broken with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a nose, etc.
Then as you look down at your shirt there will have appeared splotches of Redness of the blood from your broken nose.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your splotches of blood on your shirt. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of blood on your shirt with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have shirt, blood, etc.


And so on for every single claim.

Again, there is ZERO way for you to even begin to correlate anything with an external world, given what you're claiming about what perception is from a conscious perspective.
If what you are saying is that even after that story, you still would not trust your internal Representation of a Wall then it is hopeless. That was my best shot. There is nothing I can say further. We are at an Impasse.
No, what I'm saying is exactly what I said: On your view . . . there's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.

Your view paints you into a corner that's impossible to even begin to get out of . . . whether you can realize this or whether you acknowledge it or not.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

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SteveKlinko wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 1:00 pm Science would go to statistical methods. By showing statistically that people can avoid walking into Walls . . .
If all anyone really has access to is their own minds, are you saying that we're doing statistics about imagining that there are other people, walls, etc.? Your view posits that we can't actually observe any other people. So we'd only be able to do statistics about our own mental phenomena.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by RCSaunders »

SteveKlinko wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 1:00 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 11:04 pmFill this out, with just one simple thing:

"The first epistemic step regarding how science knows that we're detecting an external world is _________________." And then fill out the first step, and only the first step. I'm not going to assume that you're telling me the whole story, so you don't need to worry that I'll take it that way. You're just telling me the FIRST epistemic step. Simple.
Science would go to statistical methods. By showing statistically that people can avoid walking into Walls they will have proven that we are detecting the External World of Walls pretty good. Eventually they will discover that people will almost 100% of the time be able to avoid Walls. You do not need to See Walls as they are in a Naïve Realist way to avoid them. It isn't even logical that there can be no Detection Surrogate that will accomplish the same thing as Naïve Realism.
I'll be surprised if Terrapin Station is satisfied with that explanation. To, "go to statistical method," can hardly be the first step. Where does the statistical data come from? Even for a, "statistical method," wouldn't the first step have to be observation of people walking and walls. But if the external (perceived) walls are only questionable events in our consciousness, whatever data we gather to do our statistical analysis can be no better than the unreliable conscious perception. We'd be statistically analyzing our conscious illusions, not any external reality.

The fact is, no scientific fact can be established by statistics. "Induction," is not how science is done, though most philosophers and scientists influenced by them have been hoodwinked into believing that since Hume and Kant undercut the whole foundation of science. The only part, "induction," ever plays in science is as a means of observation and recognition of apparent relationships which suggest further research--but no scientific principle can be established only on the basis of how many times it is observed. That way leads to madness (which explains how so much bad science is put over today).

All successful science is discovering what exists, what the nature of that existence is, and the relationships between those existents. Science does not explain, "why," anything is what it is, only, "what," things are. The question of, "why," is usually wrong in science. The question of what the chemical elements are is how the entire periodic chart of the elements was developed, for example--one of the most profound of scientific certainties. It does not describe, "why," the chemical elements are what they are, only, "what," they are. "Why," comes after that--why the chemical elements behave as they do and interact as they do is answered by, "what," they are. It is the properties of the elements (what they are) that determines what they do. None of these scientific facts could ever be discovered by any statistical means.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Dimebag »

Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 10:59 pm I'm not going to run through the whole thing--you typed a lot more than you needed to, but here's the problem for the first couple things you suggest. The objections would keep going this way throughout:
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm All the Senses are Correlated with each other. If you see a Wall
On your view, what you're actually seeing is a mental image of a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of a wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.
and then decide to run into it because you can't really believe what you are Seeing, you will find that at the moment of impacting your face into the Wall
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of impacting your face into the wall. You're not seeing/experiencing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of impacting your face into the wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a face, etc.
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm Also you will Sense that your motion has been abruptly stopped by the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually sensing is a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall with any external world.There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a body to run into a wall, etc.
Also at the Moment of impacting your face you would have had an Auditory Experience of a banging or crunching quality as your nose gets broken and flattened on the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your nose getting broken. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of your nose being broken with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a nose, etc.
Then as you look down at your shirt there will have appeared splotches of Redness of the blood from your broken nose.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your splotches of blood on your shirt. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of blood on your shirt with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have shirt, blood, etc.


And so on for every single claim.

Again, there is ZERO way for you to even begin to correlate anything with an external world, given what you're claiming about what perception is from a conscious perspective.
What NEEDS to be differentiated here, is your usage of the word “mental image”. When you say mental image, is this synonymous with “imagination”, like day dreaming, or remembering? What is being referred to when we say, representation is, we are seeing things, via our senses, but the reality of the things we are seeing is, they are “referents” to things existing external to us.

But they are almost always faithful referents, such that there is a consistency to them, in which our predictive systems of our brain can begin to anticipate how those referents will behave, and thus, there can be an interaction with our physical bodies and the external environment, via these referents.

Imagine you are a blind person. Now, imagine you are driving a car. I direct you using some verbal communications, like left, right, slow, fast, stop, easy left, easy right etc.

At first, our ability to use this system will be fraught with difficulty, but likely, over time we will begin to form some faithful set of communications, which allow you to drive the car in a relatively reliable way.

Your senses are a little like that, except far more accurate, detailed and rich, and far more integrated with your body, such that there can be very accurate feedback for guiding actions in the world, so accurate that you will mistake this representation for the world itself. And in fact, it’s probably far more reliable to not think of the representation as a representation, so as to reduce the processing necessary for producing reliable actions in that external world. If we constantly had to tell ourselves, “this representation occurring in my mind actually refers to something external to me, which will have consequences for the system which allows this representation to even occur”, we would likely never have been able to survive as a species. But, once our behaviours become so automatic, our mind might, once in a while, relax to the point where this veil lifts and the representation is seen as such.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

Dimebag wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:14 am
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 10:59 pm I'm not going to run through the whole thing--you typed a lot more than you needed to, but here's the problem for the first couple things you suggest. The objections would keep going this way throughout:
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm All the Senses are Correlated with each other. If you see a Wall
On your view, what you're actually seeing is a mental image of a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of a wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.
and then decide to run into it because you can't really believe what you are Seeing, you will find that at the moment of impacting your face into the Wall
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of impacting your face into the wall. You're not seeing/experiencing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of impacting your face into the wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a face, etc.
SteveKlinko wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:49 pm Also you will Sense that your motion has been abruptly stopped by the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually sensing is a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall with any external world.There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a body to run into a wall, etc.
Also at the Moment of impacting your face you would have had an Auditory Experience of a banging or crunching quality as your nose gets broken and flattened on the Wall.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your nose getting broken. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of your nose being broken with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a nose, etc.
Then as you look down at your shirt there will have appeared splotches of Redness of the blood from your broken nose.
On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your splotches of blood on your shirt. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of blood on your shirt with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have shirt, blood, etc.


And so on for every single claim.

Again, there is ZERO way for you to even begin to correlate anything with an external world, given what you're claiming about what perception is from a conscious perspective.
What NEEDS to be differentiated here, is your usage of the word “mental image”. When you say mental image, is this synonymous with “imagination”, like day dreaming, or remembering? What is being referred to when we say, representation is, we are seeing things, via our senses, but the reality of the things we are seeing is, they are “referents” to things existing external to us.

But they are almost always faithful referents, such that there is a consistency to them, in which our predictive systems of our brain can begin to anticipate how those referents will behave, and thus, there can be an interaction with our physical bodies and the external environment, via these referents.

Imagine you are a blind person. Now, imagine you are driving a car. I direct you using some verbal communications, like left, right, slow, fast, stop, easy left, easy right etc.

At first, our ability to use this system will be fraught with difficulty, but likely, over time we will begin to form some faithful set of communications, which allow you to drive the car in a relatively reliable way.

Your senses are a little like that, except far more accurate, detailed and rich, and far more integrated with your body, such that there can be very accurate feedback for guiding actions in the world, so accurate that you will mistake this representation for the world itself. And in fact, it’s probably far more reliable to not think of the representation as a representation, so as to reduce the processing necessary for producing reliable actions in that external world. If we constantly had to tell ourselves, “this representation occurring in my mind actually refers to something external to me, which will have consequences for the system which allows this representation to even occur”, we would likely never have been able to survive as a species. But, once our behaviours become so automatic, our mind might, once in a while, relax to the point where this veil lifts and the representation is seen as such.
You're completely ignoring the issue.

If you're ONLY seeing something your mind is creating, and you can't actually observe anything external to you, then how would you even begin to say that anything is external to you?

The first step would be _______? Fill in the blank. What's the first epistemic step for knowing that anything is external to you (again if you can ONLY experience what your mind creates)?

Otherwise, if you're simply saying that perception is ultimately a brain function, it's something your brain does, then that's fine, but in that case, what the heck is anyone believing that naive realists are saying differently?
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

How could you know that the only thing visible to you is a representation, or, for that matter, how would you know that everything you sense is actually external?

Not knowing leaves you only to guess what the case may be or to believe that things are one way or the other.

Then it comes down to which belief is most propitious to the survival of the species.

Representations will only protect you if they closely correlate to what they represent, and even at that saving you from harm depends on how sufficiently close the representations are.

Believing that you have access to the external allows you to interact with the external in a way that would most serve your best interests, even if things are not actually external.

Unless you are a lunatic. In which case what you believe is a close representation has no relation to the external world, and your belief might not serve your best sane interests.

Speaking only of normal humans, the better, more practical belief is that you exist in a real, external world.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Dimebag »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:34 pm
Dimebag wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:14 am
Terrapin Station wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 10:59 pm I'm not going to run through the whole thing--you typed a lot more than you needed to, but here's the problem for the first couple things you suggest. The objections would keep going this way throughout:



On your view, what you're actually seeing is a mental image of a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of a wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if there are really any walls, etc.



On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of impacting your face into the wall. You're not seeing/experiencing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of impacting your face into the wall with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a face, etc.



On your view, what you're actually sensing is a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of being abruptly stopped by a wall with any external world.There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a body to run into a wall, etc.



On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your nose getting broken. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of your nose being broken with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have a nose, etc.



On your view, what you're actually experiencing is a mental image of your splotches of blood on your shirt. You're not seeing anything external to you. Hence there's no way to correlate what you believe to only be a mental image of blood on your shirt with any external world. There's no way for you to even begin to tell if there's an external world, if you really have shirt, blood, etc.


And so on for every single claim.

Again, there is ZERO way for you to even begin to correlate anything with an external world, given what you're claiming about what perception is from a conscious perspective.
What NEEDS to be differentiated here, is your usage of the word “mental image”. When you say mental image, is this synonymous with “imagination”, like day dreaming, or remembering? What is being referred to when we say, representation is, we are seeing things, via our senses, but the reality of the things we are seeing is, they are “referents” to things existing external to us.

But they are almost always faithful referents, such that there is a consistency to them, in which our predictive systems of our brain can begin to anticipate how those referents will behave, and thus, there can be an interaction with our physical bodies and the external environment, via these referents.

Imagine you are a blind person. Now, imagine you are driving a car. I direct you using some verbal communications, like left, right, slow, fast, stop, easy left, easy right etc.

At first, our ability to use this system will be fraught with difficulty, but likely, over time we will begin to form some faithful set of communications, which allow you to drive the car in a relatively reliable way.

Your senses are a little like that, except far more accurate, detailed and rich, and far more integrated with your body, such that there can be very accurate feedback for guiding actions in the world, so accurate that you will mistake this representation for the world itself. And in fact, it’s probably far more reliable to not think of the representation as a representation, so as to reduce the processing necessary for producing reliable actions in that external world. If we constantly had to tell ourselves, “this representation occurring in my mind actually refers to something external to me, which will have consequences for the system which allows this representation to even occur”, we would likely never have been able to survive as a species. But, once our behaviours become so automatic, our mind might, once in a while, relax to the point where this veil lifts and the representation is seen as such.
You're completely ignoring the issue.

If you're ONLY seeing something your mind is creating, and you can't actually observe anything external to you, then how would you even begin to say that anything is external to you?

The first step would be _______? Fill in the blank. What's the first epistemic step for knowing that anything is external to you (again if you can ONLY experience what your mind creates)?

Otherwise, if you're simply saying that perception is ultimately a brain function, it's something your brain does, then that's fine, but in that case, what the heck is anyone believing that naive realists are saying differently?
Actually mate you seem to be missing the point. We are born INTO THE MATRIX, we have nothing else to judge and compare our experiences against, no concepts of brains, perception etc, and so we are born believing everything, taking it all on its face value. Children don’t know their perceptions are perceptions, they just act and see the world, based on their internal wants. It is only as one grows older, gains certain concepts and attains some degree of detachment, is able to withhold their immediate desires, to control one’s own impulses, that awareness can begin to detach from its contents. Awareness is like the bridge between perception and action. If awareness is merged with, or bound to those perceptions, actions will occur based on prior conditioning.

Detachment from perceptions, allows both control, veto power, and a truer understanding of its reality as mental construction. But the natural tendency of the brain is for awareness to be bound to perception, thus it takes work to detach and see them as they are.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

Dimebag wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 10:06 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:34 pm
Dimebag wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:14 am
What NEEDS to be differentiated here, is your usage of the word “mental image”. When you say mental image, is this synonymous with “imagination”, like day dreaming, or remembering? What is being referred to when we say, representation is, we are seeing things, via our senses, but the reality of the things we are seeing is, they are “referents” to things existing external to us.

But they are almost always faithful referents, such that there is a consistency to them, in which our predictive systems of our brain can begin to anticipate how those referents will behave, and thus, there can be an interaction with our physical bodies and the external environment, via these referents.

Imagine you are a blind person. Now, imagine you are driving a car. I direct you using some verbal communications, like left, right, slow, fast, stop, easy left, easy right etc.

At first, our ability to use this system will be fraught with difficulty, but likely, over time we will begin to form some faithful set of communications, which allow you to drive the car in a relatively reliable way.

Your senses are a little like that, except far more accurate, detailed and rich, and far more integrated with your body, such that there can be very accurate feedback for guiding actions in the world, so accurate that you will mistake this representation for the world itself. And in fact, it’s probably far more reliable to not think of the representation as a representation, so as to reduce the processing necessary for producing reliable actions in that external world. If we constantly had to tell ourselves, “this representation occurring in my mind actually refers to something external to me, which will have consequences for the system which allows this representation to even occur”, we would likely never have been able to survive as a species. But, once our behaviours become so automatic, our mind might, once in a while, relax to the point where this veil lifts and the representation is seen as such.
You're completely ignoring the issue.

If you're ONLY seeing something your mind is creating, and you can't actually observe anything external to you, then how would you even begin to say that anything is external to you?

The first step would be _______? Fill in the blank. What's the first epistemic step for knowing that anything is external to you (again if you can ONLY experience what your mind creates)?

Otherwise, if you're simply saying that perception is ultimately a brain function, it's something your brain does, then that's fine, but in that case, what the heck is anyone believing that naive realists are saying differently?
Actually mate you seem to be missing the point. We are born INTO THE MATRIX, we have nothing else to judge and compare our experiences against, no concepts of brains, perception etc, and so we are born believing everything, taking it all on its face value. Children don’t know their perceptions are perceptions, they just act and see the world, based on their internal wants. It is only as one grows older, gains certain concepts and attains some degree of detachment, is able to withhold their immediate desires, to control one’s own impulses, that awareness can begin to detach from its contents. Awareness is like the bridge between perception and action. If awareness is merged with, or bound to those perceptions, actions will occur based on prior conditioning.

Detachment from perceptions, allows both control, veto power, and a truer understanding of its reality as mental construction. But the natural tendency of the brain is for awareness to be bound to perception, thus it takes work to detach and see them as they are.
Fill in the blank ferchrissakes.
Dimebag
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Dimebag »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 10:53 pm
Dimebag wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 10:06 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:34 pm

You're completely ignoring the issue.

If you're ONLY seeing something your mind is creating, and you can't actually observe anything external to you, then how would you even begin to say that anything is external to you?

The first step would be _______? Fill in the blank. What's the first epistemic step for knowing that anything is external to you (again if you can ONLY experience what your mind creates)?

Otherwise, if you're simply saying that perception is ultimately a brain function, it's something your brain does, then that's fine, but in that case, what the heck is anyone believing that naive realists are saying differently?
Actually mate you seem to be missing the point. We are born INTO THE MATRIX, we have nothing else to judge and compare our experiences against, no concepts of brains, perception etc, and so we are born believing everything, taking it all on its face value. Children don’t know their perceptions are perceptions, they just act and see the world, based on their internal wants. It is only as one grows older, gains certain concepts and attains some degree of detachment, is able to withhold their immediate desires, to control one’s own impulses, that awareness can begin to detach from its contents. Awareness is like the bridge between perception and action. If awareness is merged with, or bound to those perceptions, actions will occur based on prior conditioning.

Detachment from perceptions, allows both control, veto power, and a truer understanding of its reality as mental construction. But the natural tendency of the brain is for awareness to be bound to perception, thus it takes work to detach and see them as they are.
Fill in the blank ferchrissakes.
Your question is actually quite a deep one. Are you asking, how do we differentiate between internal, or mind generated experiences, as opposed to world generated experiences? Examples would be the difference between a thought and a sound heard. Or a mental image vs vision from the eyes.

This is just a guess, because the true answer would be tied up in brain function. But from my limited knowledge of what the brain does, it anticipates or tries to predict an incoming sensory signal.

Based on this, if an incoming sensory signal source is generated from for example, the conceptual mind, in the case of a thought, this signal will already be known and anticipated, thus, it would be determined that it was generated from inside the brain, and thus, assigned to the self-agency.

Whereas, an external auditory signal will not be anticipated, and its source is also from a sensory organ which is responsible for detecting external sounds, or self generated sounds. So all of these sounds will be tagged as external, unless they are self generated, such as talking, this is an edge case, because although the speech sounds are coming from the ears, an external source, their referents, the concepts which caused the speech sounds, were generated internally, and thus it will be a combination of internal and external source.

This is a rough idea. But there is bound to be more brain function which would explain your question a little more completely.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

Dimebag wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 5:12 am Your question is actually quite a deep one. Are you asking, how do we differentiate between internal, or mind generated experiences, as opposed to world generated experiences?
Yes, and I'm asking that in the context of a claim that we only experience internal phenomena.
Examples would be the difference between a thought and a sound heard. Or a mental image vs vision from the eyes.
Sure, where the question is how someone who claims that we only experience internal phenomena can arrive at "vision from the eyes" for example.
This is just a guess, because the true answer would be tied up in brain function . . .
If it's something that would take a lot of "hard thinking," I want the people responding to DO the hard thinking in question, before responding. Take however long you'd need to take to mull it over--a day, a week, a few months, whatever--until you feel that you have what you consider a satisfactory answer that would mesh with the rest of your views. That's the whole point of this. I want people to think about what they're claiming and be able to construct a coherent/consistent view.
But from my limited knowledge of what the brain does, it anticipates or tries to predict an incoming sensory signal . . . Based on this, if an incoming sensory signal source is generated from for example, the conceptual mind, in the case of a thought, this signal will already be known and anticipated, thus, it would be determined that it was generated from inside the brain, and thus, assigned to the self-agency.
Whereas, an external auditory signal will not be anticipated, and its source is also from a sensory organ which is responsible for detecting external sounds, or self generated sounds. So all of these sounds will be tagged as external, unless they are self generated, such as talking, this is an edge case, because although the speech sounds are coming from the ears, an external source, their referents, the concepts which caused the speech sounds, were generated internally, and thus it will be a combination of internal and external source.
That's fine. Now what you'd need to think about is this: IF what's being ultimately claimed is that we ONLY experience internal phenomena, then on what grounds would we be able to say that anticipation has some connection with distinguishing "world generated experiences" in order to justify that we know anything at all about "world generated experiences," or in order to be able to justify that there even IS a world other than our "internal" phenomena?

I'm really asking exactly the same thing that I've been asking over and over and over in this thread, in an attempt for anyone who would say that we ONLY experience internal phenomena to justify that view, especially on the grounds of claims about perception and how it works.
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