I only clicked the link to "Dualism all the way down: why there is no paradox of phenomenal judgment", because it sounded very counterintuitive. I didn't see a link to view, I assumed it was paywalled, and the abstract wasn't edifying. But I just looked again and actually there is a link to view it.
I only clicked the link to "Dualism all the way down: why there is no paradox of phenomenal judgment", because it sounded very counterintuitive. I didn't see a link to view, I assumed it was paywalled, and the abstract wasn't edifying. But I just looked again and actually there is a link to view it.
My comments on it:
- The "paradox" in section 1 seems... odd. I wouldn't say "Itchiness feels like this" because it's so hard to describe, and the proposition "my z-twin’s belief is not only false, it’s not justified" seems incorrect, in that the belief is only "false" if you treat the word "feels" as if it means "has qualia" which isn't the case under my understanding of epiphenomenalism or p-zombies. My understanding of epiphenomenalism is not that there is any paradox in a human/p-zombie trying to describe itchiness in particular (apart from it being indescribable). The paradox is rather (as Yudkowsky described it) that humans have *elucidated* beliefs in qualia as a concept in general, because *elucidated* beliefs seem to require a separate/independent cause from the real epiphenomenal qualia. Also, point 8 should not be "therefore epiphenomenalism is false" but "therefore epiphenomenalism is unjustified". I expect not to understand what follows without grokking what this part is trying to say, and I find the immediately following paragraphs fairly confusing, but not entirely so, e.g. the diagram appears to describe epiphenomenalism as I understand it, if the thick arrow signifies that information flow is unidirectional.
- I sense that the author equivocates between "epiphenomenalism" and "dualism". If she considers those concepts as the same (rather than epi. ⊂ dualism), we're not on the same page (then again, in recent years I've not been sure what dualism means or whether there is an agreed definition.)
- By §3 my head hurts a bit, and I decide to stop reading, but I think I get the basic idea. I conclude that she only analyzed a strawman. She said in the beginning that "Epiphenomenalist dualists hold that certain physical states give rise to non-physical conscious experiences, but that these non-physical experiences are themselves causally inefficacious". This matches my own understanding of epiphenomenalism, and with this in mind I observe that she hasn't mentioned the *real* paradox of epiphenomenalism, given her own conception of beliefs existing on some sort of dualist plane of existence. The paradox is like so:
1. Information flows from physical world to non-physical phenomenal conscious experience, or in other words, qualia
2. Information flows from qualia to beliefs within the "dual plane of existence" (to coin a phase ― I'm confused why *I* needed to coin a phrase; there should've been some standard pre-existing phrase that the author knew about and used)
3. Beliefs existing in the "dual plane", including beliefs that were directly caused by qualia in the dual plane, are either (i) causally efficacious and therefore not epiphenomenal, or (ii) mysteriously duplicated on the physical plane (and causally efficacious, because e.g. discussions like this one exist in the physical plane).
TBC she discusses *only* 1 and 2 which are nonparadoxical; the paradox is in 3. So sure, Chalmers may conceptualize epiphenomenalism differently than her, but this does doesn't obviate her responsibility to address the problem in her own conceptualization.
Let me know if §3-8 eventually discusses the true paradox.
I only clicked the link to "Dualism all the way down: why there is no paradox of phenomenal judgment", because it sounded very counterintuitive. I didn't see a link to view, I assumed it was paywalled, and the abstract wasn't edifying. But I just looked again and actually there is a link to view it.
My comments on it:
- The "paradox" in section 1 seems... odd. I wouldn't say "Itchiness feels like this" because it's so hard to describe, and the proposition "my z-twin’s belief is not only false, it’s not justified" seems incorrect, in that the belief is only "false" if you treat the word "feels" as if it means "has qualia" which isn't the case under my understanding of epiphenomenalism or p-zombies. My understanding of epiphenomenalism is not that there is any paradox in a human/p-zombie trying to describe itchiness in particular (apart from it being indescribable). The paradox is rather (as Yudkowsky described it) that humans have *elucidated* beliefs in qualia as a concept in general, because *elucidated* beliefs seem to require a separate/independent cause from the real epiphenomenal qualia. Also, point 8 should not be "therefore epiphenomenalism is false" but "therefore epiphenomenalism is unjustified". I expect not to understand what follows without grokking what this part is trying to say, and I find the immediately following paragraphs fairly confusing, but not entirely so, e.g. the diagram appears to describe epiphenomenalism as I understand it, if the thick arrow signifies that information flow is unidirectional.
- I sense that the author equivocates between "epiphenomenalism" and "dualism". If she considers those concepts as the same (rather than epi. ⊂ dualism), we're not on the same page (then again, in recent years I've not been sure what dualism means or whether there is an agreed definition.)
- By §3 my head hurts a bit, and I decide to stop reading, but I think I get the basic idea. I conclude that she only analyzed a strawman. She said in the beginning that "Epiphenomenalist dualists hold that certain physical states give rise to non-physical conscious experiences, but that these non-physical experiences are themselves causally inefficacious". This matches my own understanding of epiphenomenalism, and with this in mind I observe that she hasn't mentioned the *real* paradox of epiphenomenalism, given her own conception of beliefs existing on some sort of dualist plane of existence. The paradox is like so:
1. Information flows from physical world to non-physical phenomenal conscious experience, or in other words, qualia
2. Information flows from qualia to beliefs within the "dual plane of existence" (to coin a phase ― I'm confused why *I* needed to coin a phrase; there should've been some standard pre-existing phrase that the author knew about and used)
3. Beliefs existing in the "dual plane", including beliefs that were directly caused by qualia in the dual plane, are either (i) causally efficacious and therefore not epiphenomenal, or (ii) mysteriously duplicated on the physical plane (and causally efficacious, because e.g. discussions like this one exist in the physical plane).
TBC she discusses *only* 1 and 2 which are nonparadoxical; the paradox is in 3. So sure, Chalmers may conceptualize epiphenomenalism differently than her, but this does doesn't obviate her responsibility to address the problem in her own conceptualization.
Let me know if §3-8 eventually discusses the true paradox.