Robotic emotions

You're cracking me up :bigsmile:
However the qualia is a classical problem of ontological style (metaphysical). It has not come up with the neurological debate around Dennett.


Music is not something where you can be mislead. But, ok, i get your point.


Nice to see that you really did read that post about the sunrise, i haven't really expected that.
And you even read it so precisely that you understood it. I can't say that about everyone.
The problem is in fact that most people do not realise that their understanding of the world is cartesian with all the ballast that comes with it.
My point is that every consciousness is a reflection of a particular aspect of reality that is valid.
(I am not just talking about philosophical cognitions. A 14 year old urban alcoholic who finds satisfaction only in smashing faces is also a reflection of a particular reality.)
The philosophical discipline of metaphysics however is rooted in an aristotelian philosophy that tries to locate concepts (mostly terms) in an objective reality (ultimate truth). Descarte's philosophy actually is in these parts based on Aristotle's ideas.
So according to my point of view, when we say 'information', 'food' or even 'table', we talk about something that 'is', however not as an ultimate truth but for that aspect of reality that we are part of (our particular reference system).
In a way this does lead us back to the Copenhagen interpretation because we do create this reality.


Right.
The question is, if there is a universe 'as it is', without us observing.


I commit to being agnostic.
We do not really know if there is a universe 'as it is'.
There are reasons to believe it is there. But there are reasons (see QM) to believe that even if it is there it can not be considered 'as it is'.
It might be extremely undetermined.
I find it very difficult to answer. What i know for sure is that we don't know for sure. By now.
However there also is a difference between what i know and what i believe.
And what i believe is:
Every particle is an observer. Information processing is the root of intelligence, and intelligence emerging from information processing, i believe that the roots of intelligence (and consciousness) can already be found in the ability of particles to process information.
Mankind is only one branch of this growing potential.
Varela and Maturana (who created the autopoiesis concept) describe life itself (!) as a cognitive process.
The process of life can scientifically be described as groping in a phase space.
The universe itself is the substance for the emergence of intelligence.
When you say life you say intelligence because life is the universe' (cognitive) way of finding ways to reflect itself (become conscious?).
It's not unlikely that out there thousands or even billions of other branches exist.
Human intelligence is only one out of many possible stages intelligence can reach.
Every particle contributes to billions of billions of attempts for finding ways to accumulate information...
To what outcome? We shouldn't even assume that consciousness is the final outcome.
Oops. Does this sound like schizophrenic to anyone?

hey we're pretty much on the same page. I only have a couple more observations.

First I think Aristotle's legacy in metaphysics is very unfortunate.



I think the way Western metaphysics subsequently developed, specifically through Augustine, was fatally flawed by the Aristotlean concept of 'spiritual substance'. This as you suggest eventually gave rise to Descartes' muddled conception of the 'extensionless substance' which has bedevilled Western philosophy ever since. All such conceptions arise due to the misunderstanding of the nature of thinking itself. Thinking as a process can only proceed by way of objects. Thought itself is dualistic, beginning with the essential duality of subject and object. When thought tries to imagine or project some reality beyond itself, it will come up with some idea 'spiritual substance' or 'ultimate object' or something similar. This however is self-contradictory. There is no such object, realm or thing, in that sense. The Buddha is very clear on that. (Descartes himself never deconstructed his own mental operations, hence his 'Cogito' does not really get to the bottom of who is thinking.)

By contrast, the Platonic and Neo-Platonic conception of the matter was completely different. As the quoted passage from the Theosophical society suggests, the Platonist view was more characteristic of the Eastern outlook which arises in the cessation of the operations of thought and disengagement from the objects of perception through contemplative stillness. Now this understanding is much more characteristic of the Eastern Orthodox faiths and in the meditative traditions, generally.

Which gets us to Francisco Varela. It was in his book, Embodied Cognition, that I found the reference to 'Cartesian anxiety'. Just got that far, and the book got recalled by the library. I am only just now beginning to discover his work but it seems very brilliant. Also he was one of the founders of the Mind and Life Institute, which I think is one of the precursors of a true 21st Century science.

watch Blade Runner