Colin:YES....Brains don't have their own sensors or self-represent with a perceptual field. So what? That's got nothing whatever to do with the matter at hand. CUT cortex and you can kill off "what it is like" percepts out there in the body (although in confusing ways). Touch appropriate exposed cortex with a non-invasive probe and you can create percepts apparently, but not actually, elsewhere in the body.
Cut off your sensors and your body -remove the body from the brain - and you also don't have any form of consciousness or sensation - contrary to the brain-in-a-vat delusion. However if you remove the brain entirely - from an evolutionary perspective - you still have consciousness. Living organisms clearly had and have intelligence *before* the brain was evolved - *before* intelligence was centralised in one area of the body. Intelligence was clearly at first *distributed* through a proto-nervous system throughout the body. Watch a sea anemone wait and then grab, and then devour a fish that approaches it and you will be convinced of that. The anemone does not have a brain only a nervous system. You are trying to locate consciousness in one area of the body rather than in the brain-body as a whole. It's clearly wrong. You - your self - and your consciousness - are a whole body affair. Understanding this is vital not only for understanding consciousness but also general intelligence and creativity, as I have dealt with elsewhere ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
