On Aug 6, 2:20 pm, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 8/6/2011 6:03 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > 2. Consciousness isn't a special logical design that turns inanimate > > objects and circuits into something that can feel. Matter feels > > already - or detects/reacts. Consciousness is just the same principle > > run through multiple organic elaborations so that it feels as the > > interior of an organism rather than just the interior of cells or > > molecules. It scales up. > > That's the crux of the argument. Do you suppose that if I were > decomposed in my constituent atoms I would still feel?
You wouldn't feel, but neither would something in your shape feel if it were composed of ping pong balls. The fundamental unit has to be something with the potential to build it's existing nature into feeling. If you are knocked unconscious you stop feeling, but your brain continues to make sense of itself and bring itself back into a condition where you will become conscious again, assuming the damage doesn't prohibit that. > The matter is, > ex hypothesi, the same. It seems pretty clear to me that it is not the > matter per se that feels, it is the organized matter. So what is it > about the organization that results in qualia? It's both. The relationship between the matter and it's organization results in sensorimotive electromagnetism, which is subjectively experienced as compacted qualia and objectively computed as discrete quantitative relationships. > One pluasible answer is > that it is the way the organized matter (e.g. a neuron or a brain or a > computer) processes information. Right, but you have it inside out. Information is an abstraction, so saying that qualia is the way that organized matter processes information is like saying that singing is the way that the vocal chords process nouns and verbs. Information does not physically exist. It's an intellectual construct requiring adult human sanity to parse. Matter feels and makes sense, sense makes sense out of itself as information. >That it is just a property of the > matter is not plausible, since disorganized matter behaves much more simply. Elements could not have different exclusive properties if there weren't an inherent ability to participate in a larger organization. Not all elements can be configured into the same molecules. Simple or not, disorganized matter can't be made into whatever organization that you'd like, and likewise, all abstract organizations are not equivalent to material identities. Craig http://s33light.org -- 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.
