On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 4:25 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> In other fields, once we have an explanation that fits in with other > theories and which allows use to manipulate or predict things we call it an > explanation. > True, and we already know enough about consciousness to manipulate it with drugs or surgery or electrical stimulation of the brain in predictable repeatable ways. > > I think that when consciousness is 'explained' it will just be that we > will have solved the engineering problems of AI and robotics to such a > degree that everyone will agree that we can make conscious robots > I very much agree! > And we will just stop thinking of consciousness as "the hard problem" > because it will be seen as an ancillary question - like, how does gravity > act at a distance. > Actually gravity doesn't act at a distance, if a force is not acting on them things always move in the shortest path between two points in spacetime, its just that in the presence of mass spacetime is no longer flat. For example: no force is acting on the moon (Einstein doesn't consider gravity to be a force) so if you note that the moon is at point X in spacetime and 28 days later it is at point Y you can conclude that the path the moon took to get from one point to the other must have been the shortest possible path, and in this case that path would be a ellipse because the Earth curves spacetime in its vicinity. Matter tells spacetime how to curve and spacetime tells matter how to move. Of course you could then ask me why mass bend spacetime and I have no answer to that, I can only say that it does. John K Clark -- 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.
