Brent meeker writes: > > We would understand it in a third person sense but not in a first person > > sense, except by analogy with our > > own first person experience. Consciousness is the difference between what > > can be known by observing an > > entity and what can be known by being the entity, or something like the > > entity, yourself. > > > > Stathis Papaioannou > > But you are simply positing that there is such a difference. That's easy to > do > because we know so little about how brains work. But consider the engine in > your > car. Do you know what it's like to be the engine in your car? You know a > lot about > it, but how do you know that you know all of it? Does that mean your car > engine is > conscious? I'd say yes it is (at a very low level) and you *can* know what > it's like.
No, I don't know what it's like to be the engine in my car. I would guess it isn't like anything, but I might be wrong. If I am wrong, then my car engine may indeed be conscious, but in a completely alien way, which I cannot understand no matter how much I learn about car mechanics, because I am not myself a car engine. I think the same would happen if we encountered an alien civilization. We would probably assume that they were conscious because we would observe that they exhibit intelligent behaviour, but only if by coincidence they had sensations, emotions etc. which reminded us of our own would we be able to guess what their conscious experience was actually like, and even then we would not be sure. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
