> On 1 Mar 2019, at 21:36, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > > > On 3/1/2019 7:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> On 28 Feb 2019, at 22:47, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net >>> <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On 2/28/2019 1:17 PM, Philip Thrift wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> The best current philosopher of (and writer about) consciousness is Galen >>>> Strawson. >>>> >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson >>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson> >>>> https://sites.google.com/site/galenstrawson/ >>>> <https://sites.google.com/site/galenstrawson/> >>>> https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/philosophy/faculty/profile.php?id=gs24429 >>>> <https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/philosophy/faculty/profile.php?id=gs24429> >>>> >>>> There is a lot of his material (PDFs, articles, videos, etc.) freely >>>> available online. >>>> >>>> The main word that is synonymous with consciousness is experience. >>> >>> Which is something bacteria and plants and my thermostat have...and ability >>> to detect and react to the environment based on internal states. >> >> What the thermostat lacks, that the bacteria and plants do not lack, is >> Turing universality. That gives the mind, and even the free-will. > > A bacterium doesn't have Turing universiality, only bacteria in the abstract > of a potentially infinite set of evolving bacteria interacting with their > environment. But if a consider a potentially infinite set of thermostats > interacting with their environment of furnaces and rooms, it will be Turing > universal too. Turing universality is cheap.
Yes, it is cheap, like consistency, and plausibly consciousness. But it is more cheap you might think, because even one bacteria is fully Turing universal. The genome of Escherichia Coli can be “programmed” to run a Turing universal set of quadruplet. Of course, the bacteria’s “tape” is quite limited, and they can exploit their universality only by cooperation in the long run, and so no individual bacteria can be self-conscious or Löbian. Bruno > > Brent > >> >> I think free-will is just universality, and we lost it when we impose >> “security”. What makes a universal machine universal is the ability to >> search for a number which do not exist, making them able to “not stop”, and >> that is what a thermostat cannot do. >> >> Bruno >> >> >> >>> >>> Brent >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >>> <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. >>> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com >>> <mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>. >>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >>> <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >> <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com >> <mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >> <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com > <mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
