Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: ... > COLIN: > Hi.... a bunch of points... > > 1) Re paper.. it is undergoing review and growing.. > The point of the paper is to squash the solipsism argument ...in > particular the specific flavour of it that deals with 'other minds' and as > it has (albeit tacitly) defined science's attitude to what is/is not > scientific evidence. As such I am only concerned with scientific > behaviour. The mere existence of a capacity to handle exquisite novelty > demands the existence of the functionality of phenomenal consciousness > within the scientist. Novel technology exists, ergo science is possible, > ergo phenomenal consciousness exists. Phenomenal consciousness is proven > by the existence of novel technology. More than 1 scientist has produced > novel technology. Ergo there is more then 1 'mind' (=collection of > phenomenal fields) ergo other minds do exist. Ergo solipsism is false. The > problem is that along the way you have also proved that there is an > external 'reality'...which is a bit of a bonus. So all the philosophical > arguments about 'existence' that have wasted so much of our time is > actually just that...a waste of time. > > 2) Turing test. I think the turing test is a completely misguided idea.
Curiously, Turing's test was to see whether a computer could succeed at pretending to be a woman as well as a man could. > It's based on the assumption that abstract (as-if) computation can fully > replicate (has access to all the same information) of computation > performed by the natural world. This assumption can be made obvious as > follows: > Q. What is it like to be a human? It is like being a mind. There is > information delivered into the mind by the action of brain material which > bestows on the human intrinsic knowledge about the natural world outside > the human....in the form of phenomenal consciousness. But the brain is made of physical components implementing physical proceses (neurons, proteins, ions,...) - why can't they be replaced by functionally identical components (artificial neurons, etc) and still deliver this consciousness? Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
