On 19 March 2010 04:01, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: > On 3/17/2010 11:01 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On 18 March 2010 16:36, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: > > > > Is it coherent to say a black box "accidentally" reproduces the I/O? It is > over some relatively small number to of I/Os, but over a large enough number > and range to sustain human behavior - that seems very doubtful. One would > be tempted to say the black box was obeying a "natural law". It would be > the same as the problem of induction. How do we know natural laws are > consistent - because we define them to be so. > > > Jack considers the case where the black box is empty and the remaining > neurological tissue just happens to continue responding as if it were > receiving normal input. That, of course, would be extremely unlikely > to happen, to the point where it could be called magic if it did > happen. But if there were such a magical black box, it would > contribute to consciousness. > > > > > Suppose there were a man with no brain at all but who just happened act > exactly like a normal person. Suppose there are no people and your whole > idea that you have a body and you are reading an email is an illusion. > > But I don't believe in magic.
I don't believe it is possible but in the spirit of functionalism, the empty-headed man would still be conscious, just as a car would still function normally if it had no engine but the wheels turned magically as if driven by an engine. Jack's point was that fading or absent qualia in a functionally normal brain was logically possible because "obviously" some qualia would be absent if a part of the brain were missing and the rest of the brain carried on normally. But I don't see that that is obvious. -- 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 everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
