On Jun 14, 12:19 pm, "Quentin Anciaux" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Sure but I still don't understand what could mean 'to know', 'to > believe' for an entity which is not conscious. Also if you're not > conscious, there is no 'me', no 'I', so there exists no 'person like > you' because then you're not a person. Quentin, ISTM that your exchanges with Torgny and Stathis demonstrate at points an all too prevalent experience of determinedly using the same words to mean divergent things, often with the lack of definite result. In my dialogue with Bruno, I'm attempting to re-construct 'from the ground up' the semantics of 'exist', 'sense' and 'act', amongst other key terms, in order that it may then be possible to re- construct consistent meanings of 'know', 'believe', etc. If there is no agreement on such fundamentals, then these higher-order 'emergents' are simply undefined. >From this perspective, I agree with you that a non-conscious entity can neither 'know' nor 'believe'. This is because a 'conscious' entity is a participatory emergent supervening directly on fundamental 'sense-action', whereas Torgny's 'action-only' account could supervene only on a domain in which 'action' is conceived as occurring in the absence of 'sensing' between elements (i.e. like 'windowless monads' that would require divine coordination). If this is coherent semantically (in other words logically tenable - which I doubt), such a domain would necessarily be disconnected from our own in such a way that Occam would demand its total discount by us. Torgny, of course, could not be communicating with us were he a participant in such a domain, and in any case it is a category error of the first magnitude to appropriate to such a domain outcomes (e.g. 'knowing') that supervene on the 'sense' prerequisite of 'action'. A computer or a rock could be counted as 'knowing' or 'believing' if its behaviour were consistent with this, and moreover if the internal causal organisation generating the knowing-believing-action sequence emerged directly (i.e. supervened on) fundamental levels of sense- action. Insofar as its behaviour was dependent on a 'software' account, this would not hold, as 'software causality' is merely an external imputation supplied by us, not one emerging organically from the entity itself. Our own knowing-believing-action sequences have evolved from (and supervene on) such fundamental sense-action, and can rely on no distinguished 'software account' (as an infinite number of such accounts could be imputed to the activity of our brains). David > 2007/6/14, Torgny Tholerus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > > > Bruno Marchal skrev: > > > Le 07-juin-07, à 15:47, Torgny Tholerus a écrit : > > > What is the philosophical term for persons like me, that totally deny the > > existence of the consciousness? > > An eliminativist. > > "Eliminativist" is not a good term for persons like me, because that term > > implies that you are eliminating an important part of reality. But you > > can't eliminate something that does not exists. If you don't believe in > > ghosts, are you then an eliminativist? If you don't believe in Santa Claus, > > are you then an eliminativist, eliminating Santa Claus? > > > -- > > Torgny Tholerus > > Sure but I still don't understand what could mean 'to know', 'to > believe' for an entity which is not conscious. Also if you're not > conscious, there is no 'me', no 'I', so there exists no 'person like > you' because then you're not a person. > > Quentin --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
