Framing “On Alien Philosophy”*
by rsbakker
Peter Hankins of Conscious Entities fame has a piece considering “On Alien Philosophy.” The debate is just getting started, but I thought it worthwhile explaining why I think this particular paper of mine amounts to more than yet just another interpretation to heap onto the intractable problem of ourselves.
Consider the four following claims:
1) We have biologically constrained (in terms of information access and processing resources) metacognitive capacities ancestrally tuned to the solution of various practical problem ecologies, and capable of exaptation to various other problems.
2) ‘Philosophical reflection’ constitutes such an exaptation.
3) All heuristic exaptations inherit, to some extent, the problem-solving limitations of the heuristic exapted.
4) ‘Philosophical reflection’ inherits the problem-solving limitations of deliberative metacognition.
Now I don’t think there’s much anything controversial about any of these claims (though, to be certain, there’s a great many devils lurking in the details adduced). So note what happens when we add the following:
5) We should expect human philosophical practice will express, in a variety of ways, the problem-solving limitations of deliberative metacognition.
Which seems equally safe. But note how the terrain of the philosophical debate regarding the nature of the soul has changed. Any claim purporting the exceptional nature of this or that intentional phenomena now needs to run the gauntlet of (5). Why assume we cognize something ontologically exceptional when we know we are bound to be duped somehow? All things being equal, mediocre explanations will always trump exceptional ones, after all.
The challenge of (5) has been around for quite some time, but if you read (precritical) eliminativists like Churchland, Stich, or Rosenberg, this is where the battle grinds to a standstill. Why? Because they have no general account of how the inevitable problem-solving limitations of deliberative metacognition would be expressed in human philosophical practice, let alone how they would generate the appearance of intentional phenomena. Since all they have are promissory notes and suggestive gestures, ontologically exceptional accounts remain the only game in town. So, despite the power of (5), the only way to speak of intentional phenomena remains the traditional, philosophical one. Science is blind without theory, so absent any eliminativist account of intentional phenomena, it has no clear way to proceed with their investigation. So it hews to exceptional posits, trusting in their local efficacy, and assuming they will be demystified by discoveries to come.
Thus the challenge posed by Alien Philosophy. By giving real, abductive teeth to (5), my account overturns the argumentative terrain between eliminativism and intentionalism by transforming the explanatory stakes. It shows us how stupidity, understood ecologically, provides everything we need to understand our otherwise baffling intuitions regarding intentional phenomena. “On Alien Philosophy” challenges the Intentionalist to explain more with less (the very thing, of course, he or she cannot do).
Now I think I’ve solved the problem, that I have a way to genuinely naturalize meaning and cognition. The science will sort my pretensions in due course, but in the meantime, the heuristic neglect account of intentionality, given its combination of mediocrity and explanatory power, has to be regarded as a serious contender.
*Originally posted 02/17/2017
For some reason, this 2017 post has been receiving quite a bit of traffic of late…
any of it worth responding to?
https://soundcloud.com/rawdatapodcast/propaganda-armies
I’ll check it out–thanks Dirk!
ah i was wondering if you got any interesting feedback from the post’s new popularity but the podcast is interesting to, we are just getting some sense of these new techs and the framing of them will be key.
i think someone is coming towards your point from another angle: http://philosophyofbrains.com/2018/05/09/3-literalism-expanded-somewhat.aspx
would be delighted to see what you think of that.
I’ll need to spend more time reading Figdor, but given her thumbnail rejections of the four intentionalist principles she considers it looks like just another spin on interpretativism. What caught your eye, Cyborg?
well, the rejection of anthropocentrism, and the argument for other minds. but yeah, the last installment read like interpretativism.
The current Conscious Entities “Why Would You Even Think That?” mentions you by name. I haven’t read the paper that is the subject of his post yet but Peter seems to suggest that it’s from someone who shares at least some of your perspective on qualia and sensory experience.
Thanks for the tip, Michael. I will check it out…
https://ouropinionsarecorrect.libsyn.com/propaganda-and-mind-control
http://newbooksnetwork.com/ruth-g-millikan-beyond-concepts-unicepts-language-and-natural-information-oxford-up-2018/
I think a close reading of Julian Jayne’s The Origin of Consciousness is worthwhile. If his thesis is correct then it’s quite possible for humans to behave in an essentially non-reflective manner. Instead of the “voices of the gods” originating in the right hemisphere we will be the subjects of machines that will command us in every aspect of living. Ooops! Seems like we’re already there!
Next stop – apoptosis!
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dear-god-3
Eggsactly.
Let us all preserve our illusions;
http://www.alexanderblum.net/2018/05/899/
“hearing everywhere”
God is known in her palaces for a refuge.
Have you listened to the interview Scott did with the Stuff To Blow Your Mind podcast where they discussed Jaynes? If not, it is worth checking out. https://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/podcasts/consciousness-and-consult.htm
Honestly, I believe that Sigmund Freud was incorrect when he suggested that there are constructs in the brain: ego, id, superego, conscience, whatever… I believe that there is only the ego and nothing more.
What’s missing from his version is the idea that telepathy is very much a real thing and explainable with science. If you’re debating in your head about whether or not you should eat the brownie, one side of the conversation isn’t you.
The only difference between the muttering, “crazy” homeless person and yourself is that this telepathic helper speaks to you in first-person perspective mimicking your own voice. This could be the protocol for addressing someone in a telepathic hive society so that you might differentiate the recipient, if you think about it. You call this your conscience. But what if it isn’t actually you.
What if this telepathic helper just drops all pretenses and starts talking to you in some other voice and in second-person perspective? Suddenly, now you’re a crazy person because you “hear voices”. Remember, you were hearing voices before; you just falsely assumed it was yourself.
I liked this piece on AI written by a 94 year old brain!
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/henry-kissinger-ai-could-mean-the-end-of-human-history/559124/
And the brilliance of his closing suggestion is blinding!
Have Donald Trump select and appoint a presidential commission to study the dangers of Artificial Intelligence!!!!
Holy smokes Bullwinkle!
“Posthistoric Man” by Roderick Seidenberg is also interesting if you can get past his tendentious and repetitive prose. He’s best taken five pages at a time with a large bottle of Pepto Dismal at hand.
I came across this study on Reddit and thought it was interesting. I don’t know if it has any relevance to your work, Scott, but figured I’d share it anyway.
“Nouns slow down speech across structurally and culturally diverse languages” http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/05/09/1800708115
Fascinating. Anecdotally I often notice that ESL people use a lot of pronouns, and I sometimes find myself asking for clarification on the reference of the pronoun.
Any ballpark estimates on when the science will sort your pretensions?
Ma, the happycog chatbot is malfunctioning again…
😦
I’m genuinely curious- not being plugged in to current neuroscience research I don’t have much to go on.
Friston agrees that an action oriented predictive brain is a heuristic brain (paraphrasing but he basically says that beliefs thatv make up the generative model in the framework of predictive coding can’t but be heuristic… see on the variational foundations of movement)
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/philosophy-of-time-and-perceptual-experience/
Thought you might be interested in this philosopher’s use of anosognosia in our perception of time, the book looks really interesting despite the reviewer’s naysaying (even if some of the naysaying seems well-founded).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigrants-children-separated-from-families-trump-zero-tolerance/
The Trump administration’s senior officials claim, without exception, to be Christians. If the answer to ‘What would Jesus do?’ is separate children from their parents and prosecute the parents for seeking to escape gang violence, hunger and violent, brutal spouses I have clearly misunderstood the gospels, or possibly Jeff Sessions has.
Every American President claimed to be a Christian. But, if being a Christian entails replicating the ethical procedures Jesus enacted and communicated, then Nietzsche was right: “There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.” One cannot carry out the Constitutional duties of the Presidency and be Jesus reincarnate. Do you suppose that it is possible to adhere to non-violence at the same time that you “faithfully execute” the laws of the United States and fulfill the duties of the Commander in Chief?
But, I suppose your comment was mere rhetoric, driven by outrage. Since this is the anosognosia blog, I wonder if you have any notion of the other perspectives on immigration policy. I think lack of understanding of the other side(s) is only a part of the division–most of the political divide arises from irreducible moral taste, however that my be neurologically wired up–but, it’s one that can be worked on with some fragment of hope.
I don’t agree with you and Nietzsche, if only because the ethical standard expected of a Christian is necessarily lower than that expected of a Christ. Of course you’re right that the ethical conduct expected of a Christian and that expected of an American political leader are often incompatible. Because it’s not yet possible for any person who does not profess religious faith of some sort to be elected or confirmed to high office, I suppose I’ll just have to learn to live with the hypocrisy.
Regarding other perspectives on Immigration policy this paper:
Click to access deceive.pdf
suggests that the opinions of reasonable, honest people arguing from the same set of facts should converge. As this exchange attests, that is not usually the case. My own sense of the matter is that most people most of the time adopt beliefs for reasons having little or nothing to do with the available evidence, then reject evidence incompatible with those beliefs. That may well be the same idea you expressed by asserting that “most of the political divide arises from irreducible moral taste.”
Based on our apparent difference in “irreducible moral taste” it’s not likely we’d find much common ground on immigration policy, but just for the heck of it, if free movement of goods and free movement of capital are thought to be healthy for the global economy why not free movement of labor? And is humanity’s best interest served by almost two hundred squabbling national governments anyway? I suppose if you have nations you have to have some sort of immigration policy, but why do you have to have nations? You’re probably thinking “Christianity and World Government, hopelessly naive on both counts” and if so you’re probably right.
I think it’s a simplification to suppose that the only cause of disagreement is that people tend to reject unfavorable evidence–though that’s a major factor. On a complex issue like immigration the range of favorable and unfavorable evidence is wide, the sheer number of facts is considerable, the veracity of information sources is difficult to ascertain, and, in the end, there remain many uncertainties arising from evolving social, economic, technological, and cultural conditions among immigrants and citizens.
I suspect we do not start with the same facts. Hanson and Cowen, for example, in their economic and policy writing, essentially want to treat all humans as interchangeable economic agents, which is a serious, deliberate, and absurd fallacy. To take the most “controversial” and probably the most significant difference among groups, there is at least a 3 standard deviation range of average IQ levels among the world’s genetically distinct (racial) groups. Hanson/Cowen engage in an egregious, continuous, highly relevant lie of omission on this point–they are not veracious information sources. The entire mainstream media and academia, plus the government/corporate world are in agreement to further this lie. This is one of the reasons why free movement of capital/goods is different from free movement of people–the former are interchangeable and the latter are not.
Further, I would insist (following Nietzsche, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and others), that there are divergent moral tastes, subjective preferences that come into play even in the unlikely event that we first start with the same facts, then approach them with Bayesian reasoning (or some other agreed procedure). On immigration, some, such as myself, instinctively view immigrants as seeking their advantage in my country–and at my expense. Now, can I dress up this instinct with facts and arguments? Of course. Is it possible that if I had contrary instincts, a faith in the goodwill of immigrants and mutually beneficial outcomes, could such contrary instincts lead to a greater appreciation of a different set of facts and arguments? Of course. On this question of immigration’s results, there is no clear consensus among honest thinkers–and if you had a collection of honest, identically knowledgeable/intelligent thinkers, their differences of opinion would be largely attributable to different moral preferences.
An issue such as immigration involves a multitude of trade-offs and risks. One of the risks is that we do not know how particular cultures will assimilate or resist assimilation in their new host nations over the long term. The current immigration game in the West strikes me as unexampled in history. When have nations, out of charity or even a facade of charity, permitted mass immigration? When have nations permitted the entry of less capable people (economically speaking), then given them special welfare benefits (before they are citizens) and special legal rights (like affirmative action)? When there is no historical precedent, are the risks of a negative outcome not higher?
The best reason to have many nations is to provide many experiments in government, culture, religion, economy, society, race–since there is no obvious winning combination of these characteristics. Immigration dilutes these experiments; it seems to be especially likely to dilute the best experiments, since people living in failed experiments want to join the successful ones. In any case, most of those 200 “sovereigns” are only nominally independent. Only 3 nations are clearly independent; perhaps another 5-10 are significant. The world is multi-polar, but it’s not 200-polar.
We are, all of us, no matter what we consider ourselves to be politically, capable of compassion. President Trump’s decision to halt family separation is both compassionate and wise. Perhaps “moral tastes” are subject to change in response to new moral evidence in the same way that our understanding of factual matters is subject to change in the face of new factual evidence.
I do not believe human beings are “interchangeable economic agents” but an economy, like an ecology, is healthier when more diverse. I have my doubts about what intelligence tests actually measure, but even granted they do measure something valid I don’t think differences among groups can morally justify discrimination against individuals.
Regarding “experiments in government, culture, religion, economy, society, race…” if one group in a clinical trial is getting healthier and the other group is getting sicker the ethical thing to do is to halt the trial and offer the treatment that is producing positive outcomes to both groups. I do not want to take that analogy so far as to assert that failing states should be incorporated into thriving ones but I do believe if thriving states do not want uncontrolled immigration from failing states efforts to help those states thrive would do good than increased border security.
https://syndicate.network/symposia/philosophy/intentionality-and-the-myths-of-the-given/
Cognition, respiration, digestion.
You okay, Scott?
I imagine he’s binge writing at the moment – though his capacity for smashing his fingers when blocking sewer pipes or having painful eye surgery are far beyond what I would have thought, so who knows? I’d like to hear his view on the north Korea talks and why that’s happening (unless it’s just been worked on for a long time?)? Also he should keep the fires burning – if there are a lot of cognitive issues in the future that issue is going to submerge unless talked about regularly (IMO).
Or he might be in northern Canada fishing.
More interesting ways to tell lies:
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-filmmaker-zone-out/?mbid=BottomRelatedStories_Sections_5
If spending money on electioneering is defined as speech for First Amendment purposes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) then I don’t see how using ‘bots, fake social media accounts and so on can be banned, or even regulated. For that matter, using phantom ads like the ones the Trump campaign or its allies are alleged to have used (aimed at black voters, showing Hillary Clinton making racist statements, and placed on social media with the hope of suppressing black voter turnout) would seem to be protected political speech. Election law seems like one more area where technology is changing faster than jurisprudence can keep up. It may be the case that authoritarian states such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia which tightly regulate social media it what they claim to be the public interest have the better approach. If the technology is rendering “free and fair” elections impossible, elections may be nearing the end of their usefulness.
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-is-rolling-out-new-rules-for-us-political-ads/
It’s quiet here at the not OK corral, so here’s an example of a triggering of moral crash space that is the most explicit and straight forward I’ve seen. And it’s D&D related!
Basically the question is, is it murder if someone is killed but then resurrected?
I was on a facebook group where people were saying it was still murder and comparing it to if a bike is stolen then returned to the owner the person who stole it still stole it. So to them the person still murdered the other person, even if that person is alive and well.
Crash. Space.
the hierarchically mechanistic mind: https://www.researchgate.net/project/The-Hierarchically-Mechanistic-Mind
heh, as if cog-sci wasn’t complicated enough why not throw all of evolution into the mix…
too bad their funding sources are largely doomed as the underlying infrastructures collapse around them
View this collection on Medium.com
Lots to consider, Scott, so thanks! I have not read “On Alien Philosophy” yet , but would love to.
A book that mirrors from a purely scientific perspective much of what you’ve put forth is “The Meaning Of Human Existence” by Nobel-prize winning evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson. You might’ve read it already, in which case, sorry for the unnecessary pitch.
But if you haven’t, it explains multilevel selection and eusociality, two of the driving forces behind evolution itself and human metacognition. Pretty fascinating.
Forced psychiatric treatment?
http://digg.com/2018/compulsory-treatment-laws
An interesting bit about artificial intelligence and corruption:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/the-secrets-in-your-inbox/565745/
If this technology is really any good I’d love to see it applies to politics.
This relatively new paper by Chalmers seems so blatantly relevant to your interests that, even as a random observer, I feel obligated to point you to it, in case you haven’t seen it yet:
Click to access CHATMO-32.pdf
http://philosophyofbrains.com/2018/09/21/cfp-the-meta-problem-of-consciousness.aspx
> The meta-problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why we think and say there is a hard problem of consciousness. The meta-problem of consciousness is in principle one of the easy problems, but it bears a special relation to the hard problem, which suggests that finding a solution to it could shed light on the hard problem itself.
(Just noticed you already mentioned this paper in an earlier post, so never mind.)