On Aug 4, 1:53 am, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 3:50 AM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > > Because we are human and we know that we are conscious so we can > > assume that other things which resemble us are also human and also > > conscious. I wouldn't assume any such thing for a machine. > > There is no way to be sure other humans are conscious. In fact, even > you might not be conscious. I assume you think you're conscious, but > you would still think that if you had a consciousness-destroying > (according to you) brain lesion that left your neurons functioning > normally, such as inactivation of DNA. It might have happened a minute > ago to most of your brain; how could you know that it had not?
> In fact, even > you might not be conscious. It is not possible to doubt that you are conscious, because doubt itself is a form of consciousness. > I assume you think you're conscious, but > you would still think that if you had a consciousness-destroying > (according to you) brain lesion that left your neurons functioning > normally, such as inactivation of DNA. No, that's the opposite of what I am saying. If your neurons are not functioning normally, ie, reduced your brain to the status of a random organ or silicon chip, you would not think you're conscious; 'you' would not think. >It might have happened a minute > ago to most of your brain; how could you know that it had not? That's where the 3p position breaks down into absurdity. The whole point of what I've been saying here is that we should each, in our own minds recognize that idea as a fallacy, follow it back to it's origin, and rip it out by the roots so we can't ever make the mistake of naively thinking it again . It doesn't matter if there is a brain lesion cause to our experience, consciousness is just as much of a hallucination whether or not it corresponds to some exterior reference, because experience doesn't 'exist', it insists. Descartes wasn't right about everything, but the reason that the cogito still resonates with it's powerful simple truth, is that it cannot be denied. Once you have a foothold on this immutable fact, you can reconcile it with the immutable facts of science and realize that they are a mirror image of each other rather than a phenomenon-epiphenomenon. They occur on the same phenomenon~phenomenon equivalence level. Existence is a form of insistence, and insistence is a form of existence. They are a single involuted continuum, but they are never the same thing within a single PRIF (Perceptual Relativity Inertial Frame) so that my subjective sensorimotive experience can only look like the consequence of electromagnetic activity to you. This is how the cosmos works. This is the solution to the mind-body problem. It's up to you now, whether to interiorize this idea, to under-stand (settle within you) it as your own truth, or to see it as an enemy idea - a threat to the self which must be defended against through accusation or inference, suspicion, literalism, intolerance, sophistry, etc. All of these tools will help restore your interiority to a state of satisfaction, to reassure you that surely this idea has no place in pretending at truth. If, however, you apply the spirit of science rather than the letter, you might be obliged to run your counter-examples in reverse. What idea is it that you are actually defending? What if you pretend I'm right and argue it that way, just out of curiosity to see if you might have some confirmation bias? Treat your own views as you would astrology. Assume that you only believe what you believe because evolutionary biology has wound up making you as an entity that thinks it wants to win a debate; because he thinks it will get him food and sex, and that his opinion on it is the meaningless arithmetic of a protein and sugar machine designed to keep it's body alive. If I want you to believe what I'm saying, I have only to modify your behavior, mechanically, or with reward & punishment conditioning so that you will act like you believe it. How will you know that you don't believe it? The universe leaves it up to you. If you want to doubt that your life exists, you are free to do that. You can imagine that you are a transparent, egoless window of logical observation on the universe, and because of how the cosmos works, your observations will support that. It's not a coincidence. If you want to imagine that you are the universe, and that every moment of your life is part of a divine order, and that your thoughts are connected with that order directly, your expectations will be supported in that too. 'What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.' Craig http://s33light.com Craig -- 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.
