----- Original Message -----
From: Darryl Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 4:44 PM
Subject: Re: Free Will
> Dan, I don't understand the argument that consciousness is useless
> without free will. What is consciousness? An awareness of one's
> internal state.
In what sense internal? Can I see your consciousness? I can see things I
associate with it, but I cannot see the consciousness.
>I would hold that "zombies"...that is, people who act just like us,
>but aren't conscious...are impossible. In order to act
> like a human one MUST be conscious. There is no difference between a
> simulation of consciousness and consciousness, they are the same thing.
But, since consciousness is not an observable, how could you tell? With
regard to your own consciousness, you have a biased sample of 1.
> Yes, it is possible to have unconscious organisms...look around and we
> find that very few organisms on earth are even close to being
> conscious.
All right, can you tell by empirical observations what the dividing line is?
Is it possible, in principal even, to falsify the conclusion "x is
conscious" or "x is unconscious" for any animal?
> But a being that acts "as if" it were conscious IS conscious.
That held water when consciousness was thought to be required to explain
human behavior. But, if human can be explained in terms of biochemistry
alone, which can in principal be explained by QED, then there is no need to
include consciousness into a model of human behavior as anything more than a
convenient behavior. It doesn't matter if being X is self-aware, the
existence or non-existence of that self awareness has nothing to do with
their behavior.
Let me put it to you this way. Let me argue that not all humans are self
aware, only the most intelligent half of the human race is really self
aware. Could you show an empirical test to disprove that?
>
> How could a creature act like a human being but not be conscious?
> Explain this to me...
>
Because, if human behavior is totally based on the biochemistry of the
brain/body, then the existence/non-existence of self-awareness is
meaningless in terms of explaining behavior.
Dan M.
