{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/posts/sexless/11",
  "path": "/posts/posts/sexless/11",
  "publishedAt": "2016-04-22T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "tags": [
    "archived"
  ],
  "textContent": "Epistemic Status: Likely\n\ni.\n\nI like to think most of us are familiar with the cognitohazard called\n'solipsism'. Most of us likely had a run in with this during some\nI'm14AndThisIsDeep phase where we were intelligent enough to produce\nsuch dangerous ideas like solipsism and determinism, but\nnot intelligent enough to produce the counter-arguments.\n\nGiven this blog's vague association with the rationalist and\npost-rationalist memeplexes, I think there's a good chance you're\nalready over solipsism if you ever contracted it, but hey, there's a\nchance I could successfully put a anti-solipsism meme in circulation,\nand there's also some more insidious forms of solipsism affecting\nphilosophy of mind that I'd like to address with this.\n\nFirst, some preliminaries. I'll define common solipsism or 'type 1\nsolipsism' as the assertion that you alone are conscious or (in a\nweaker form) that you alone are certainly aware (other people are\nmerely possibly aware). The second relevant form is more\nsophisticated, I'll call it systems solipsism or 'type 2 solipsism'.\nIt is the assertion that consciousness resides in certain structures\nof dynamic systems. Later on I'll argue against this proposition, and\nsketch an alternative.\n\n(you may wonder why I lumped two unrelated positions into one term.\nPart of this is rhetorical, and a part of it is laziness. I can defend\nit by pointing out that both positions ignore certain realities of\nconsciousness, but that's just a rationalization)\n\nii.\n\nThe easiest dragon to slay, here, is that spectre of common solipsism.\nIt's mostly semantical. It says:\n\n\"Okay, okay, maybe other people aren't really conscious, I'll\nconcede that. But, these objects-that-aren't-conscious behave in\ncertain common ways that are somewhat advanced, and can be described\nand modeled in ways that, ultimately, will have you behaving as if\nthey're actually conscious (whatever that means) so is arguing this\nreally a good use of our time?\"\n\nThis is the practical argument. That completely ignores the (possibly\nnot-well-founded) premise of the argument and goes right for the\njugular, in true empiricist fashion.\n\nThis was easy to counter, because it's a low complexity argument and\nonly takes some slightly more complex conceptual tools to dismantle.\n\niii.\n\nThere's another argument, which is capable of defeating even a\nstronger version of the great look-up table thought experiment.\n\nSuppose a interlocutor were replaced entirely by a giant look-up\ntable, with input-response pairs. By our practical argument, this\nchanges nothing, since this look-up table should have us behave as if\nit were conscious anyway.\n\nIt still feels kinda empty, they're still just a static look-up table,\nwill no free will or creativity.\n\nBut look closer.\n\nThis look-up table simply can't be a python-esue dictionary, with ever\ninput assigned some output. Demonstration: suppose you tell this\nlook-up table \"I'm going to ask you a simple yes or no question. If\nyou're answer is yes, then when I say 'red' respond with 'green'. If\nthe answer is no, respond with 'blue' instead.\"\n\nYou ask your simple question, ve answers. You say 'red', what happens next?\n\n\"Well, it depends on what ve answered with, doesn't it?\"\n\nThen it looks like the so-called look-up table must be doing some kind\nof internal modeling, does it not? And with these probes potentially\nbecoming arbitrarily advanced, it seems as though the 'look-up table'\nmight just as well be emulating whole brains.\n\nHuh.\n\niv.\n\nLet's get even more abstract. What if we imagine a randomly generated\nlist of responses, which, by miraculous chance, when implemented in\nlook-up table style way, happen to produce a human which behaves\nrelatively normal.\n\nThis, this randomly generated string must be unconscious, right?\nIt's just a bunch of random bits that happen to align in a human face.\nIt can't be modeling anything, because it's just a random string.\n\nI'm going off on a limb and will answer positively. This string is\nconscious. The argument is short, and I think it should be easy to\nfollow.\n\nUnfocus your metaphorical eyes and look at the situation we have have.\nA string which just so happens to encode human-ish behavior over a\nlifetime. We're ignoring the sheer improbability, and going purely off\nthe necessity of this string's existence.\n\nBut there's a reason we selected the string out of the entire space,\nand that reason is that the string is conscious. It's conscious\nby definition, by specification. We choose this string if it weren't\nconscious, why would we be considering it?\n\nv.\n\nAnd this argument illustration my particular ontological approach to\nconsciousness. It must be located in actions, in the output of a\nprocess rather than a process itself. Deciding if a string is\nconscious is a decision problem that's probably generally\nuncomputable. A mind bent on pretending to be nonsentient would give a\nfalse negative, and the extremely rare fluke in a stochastic process\nwould give a false positive. A trade-off.\n\nAt the core, truth grounds itself in behavior, and that eccentric mind\nwill have you behaving as if it were nonsentient, and the\nhypothetical 'random' string from the last section will have you\nbehaving as if it were sentient.\n\nIn the end, that's what matters.",
  "title": "Another Argument Against Solipsism"
}