On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 11:29 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> You won't believe that your vision is normal, no. Other people will > believe your vision is normal and you will have the capacity to make > them believe it is normal by being able to verify external optical > conditions, but your visual qualia will not be felt if the prosthetic > cortex has no biological-chemical level responses. Think of the > difference between a local anesthetic and a general anesthetic. If > it's local, there's not much external clues as to the lack of > sensation going on. If the dentist starts drilling and you say > 'aaaahhh' then she gives you more Novocaine. Likewise, people under > general anesthetic sometimes report becoming conscious but immobilized > during surgery. What you're talking about with replacing just the > visual cortex is somewhere in between. It's a big part of a sighted > person's consciousness to become numb to, but the rest of them will > still be able to peer through empty eyeballs at a generic world of > shapes and colors. You may have to consciously decrypt each shape of > each letter to think of what it's called. Who knows. It depends on how > the closely the replacement cortex resembles a natural one. But you must believe that your vision is normal, because the parts of your brain responsible for formulating beliefs and expressing them are receiving exactly the same inputs as they would normally receive. As I keep repeating, that is the entire point of the experiment. The replacement neurons function the same, except they are assumed to lack consciousness because they lack some vital component. Is it possible to make such neurons? I don't believe it is possible as it would lead to the absurdity of partial zombies. The claim is that in order to preserve consciousness it is only necessary to replicate the externally observable behaviour of neural tissue. -- 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.
