Its actually pretty consistent given the kind of dualist he is where he thinks both mind and certain body parts are essential for specific conscious experiences. For example he doesnt think a disembodied soul would have any memories of their past lives as having a specific memory relies on having certain areas of a specific brain activated
What do you say to people who say that a certain class of animal may feel pain, but they can't suffer? Where "suffer" means something like "experience more than just an instinct to avoid pain, but a conscious desire to do so".
On insects putting less weight on injured body parts, in the first bullet point you say there isn’t a benefit for them to do that as the feeling of pain would only result in applying less weight if doing so was evolutionary beneficial, which it isn't for insects, but then do you have any guesses as to why those injuries may have evolved to have conscious pain associated with them in the first place as opposed to just nociception?
Can’t it be the case that it makes passing on their genes harder so they’ve evolved psi to avoid it, but once it happens theirs no reason ti walk differently?
“Empirically false” in the assessment of consciousness! Unlike the kafkian case of having been an insect, there is nothing empirical about the mind states of others!
Matthew suggests in his post that there is strong “scientific evidence” of fish consciousness, but of course there is no scientific evidence of any sentience beyond your (my!) own. Beyond your own mind, consciousness is not “proven” nor “observed” but postulated: we have direct access to our own stream of consciousness and given our physical similarity with other humans and the existence of language, we can confidently accept the consciousness of other humans and their reporting of their mental states.
The inferences you are making to “confidently accept the consciousness of other humans” might be on a bit stronger footing than the inferences a proponent of animal sentience would make, but I think you are overstating the difference.
But I would never say that anything related to consciousness assessment is “empirical”: that is the scandal here. Beyond myself, consciousness is never “empirical”.
That doesn’t seem right. Surely there are some reasonable inferences that make studying consciousness scientifically a possible endeavor. It sounds like you are trying to claim an entire established scientific discipline is bunk on the basis of philosophical considerations that don’t actually imply what you think they do.
How scientific do you think is the study of consciousness? There are eliminativists that directly deny there is conciousness (a pointless but susprisingly widespread position), and naturalistic dualists think that the problem is metaphisically untractable:
I agree. I wrote about this not long ago myself, basically making the case that felt pain is a lot more effective at producing adaptive behavior than non-felt, purely informational signals: https://derekjames.substack.com/p/why-bugs-are-probably-conscious. Plus a little bit of homology.
Very informative post indeed. What are your thoughts on bivalve sentience?
Interesting how Huemer, a dualist, thinks that insects not having nociceptors would mean they can't experience pain
Its actually pretty consistent given the kind of dualist he is where he thinks both mind and certain body parts are essential for specific conscious experiences. For example he doesnt think a disembodied soul would have any memories of their past lives as having a specific memory relies on having certain areas of a specific brain activated
What do you say to people who say that a certain class of animal may feel pain, but they can't suffer? Where "suffer" means something like "experience more than just an instinct to avoid pain, but a conscious desire to do so".
On insects putting less weight on injured body parts, in the first bullet point you say there isn’t a benefit for them to do that as the feeling of pain would only result in applying less weight if doing so was evolutionary beneficial, which it isn't for insects, but then do you have any guesses as to why those injuries may have evolved to have conscious pain associated with them in the first place as opposed to just nociception?
Can’t it be the case that it makes passing on their genes harder so they’ve evolved psi to avoid it, but once it happens theirs no reason ti walk differently?
“Empirically false” in the assessment of consciousness! Unlike the kafkian case of having been an insect, there is nothing empirical about the mind states of others!
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3nLDxEhJwqBEtgwJc/arthropod-non-sentience
Matthew suggests in his post that there is strong “scientific evidence” of fish consciousness, but of course there is no scientific evidence of any sentience beyond your (my!) own. Beyond your own mind, consciousness is not “proven” nor “observed” but postulated: we have direct access to our own stream of consciousness and given our physical similarity with other humans and the existence of language, we can confidently accept the consciousness of other humans and their reporting of their mental states.
The inferences you are making to “confidently accept the consciousness of other humans” might be on a bit stronger footing than the inferences a proponent of animal sentience would make, but I think you are overstating the difference.
But I would never say that anything related to consciousness assessment is “empirical”: that is the scandal here. Beyond myself, consciousness is never “empirical”.
That doesn’t seem right. Surely there are some reasonable inferences that make studying consciousness scientifically a possible endeavor. It sounds like you are trying to claim an entire established scientific discipline is bunk on the basis of philosophical considerations that don’t actually imply what you think they do.
How scientific do you think is the study of consciousness? There are eliminativists that directly deny there is conciousness (a pointless but susprisingly widespread position), and naturalistic dualists think that the problem is metaphisically untractable:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5zbmEPdB2wqhyFWdW/naturalistic-dualism
I agree. I wrote about this not long ago myself, basically making the case that felt pain is a lot more effective at producing adaptive behavior than non-felt, purely informational signals: https://derekjames.substack.com/p/why-bugs-are-probably-conscious. Plus a little bit of homology.