On 28/08/07, David Nyman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What if someone simply claimed that they couldn't see how circulation > > was the same as cardiovascular activity: they could understand that > > the heart was a pump, the blood a fluid, the blood vessels conduits, > > but the circulatory system as a whole was something emergent and not > > at all obvious, in the same way that mind was emergent. Alternatively, > > a superintelligent being could claim that the mind was as obviously > > the result of brain activity as circulation was the result of > > cardiovascular activity. > > Isn't the obvious (and AFAICS unanswerable) argument against this that > 'circulation' is merely a convenient shorthand for the specific set of > underlying structures and processes, once these have been identified, > even when this is not obvious a priori. One adds nothing > *explanatorily* by applying the term to these processes, which stand > by themselves for what is to be explained from the third-person > perspective which fully suffices in this case. But I don't see how > even a superintelligent being could convince us that first person > subjective experience is by any direct analogy *explained* merely by > being equated to certain third person activities of the brain, with > nothing further remaining to be accounted for. IOW, even if we are > inclined to accept on other grounds some sort of functional identity > theory, we have made no further progress towards *explaining* the > categorical uniqueness of the first person.
I'm not sure what the answer is. Some philosophers like Dennett and Hofstadter claim that consciousness is simply a shorthand for the activity of certain complex systems, not immediately obvious because they are so complex. Maybe a thermostat has a protoconsciousness which is no more than a description of what a thermostat does, and it is no more possible to disentangle this quality from thermostat activity than it is possible to disentangle thermostat activity from thermostat activity. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
