On 19 Sep 2012, at 15:53, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi John Mikes
Once you leave the material world for the ideal one,
all things -- or at least many things-- now become possible.
Yes. Since always.
But there are many paths, and we can get lost.
Platonia before and after Gödel or Church is not the same. The circle
and the regular polyhedra keeps their majestuous importance, but now
they have the company of the Mandelbrot set, and UDs. Shit happens,
when seen from inside. With comp, heaven and hell are not mechanically
separable, nothing is easy near the boundaries.
***
I think that your metaphysics and reading of Leibniz makes sense for
me, and comp, but I have to say I don't follow your methodology or
teaching method on the religious field, as it contains authoritative
arguments.
My feeling is that authoritative argument is the symptom of those who
lack faith.
That error is multiplied in the transfinite when an authoritative
argument is attributed to God.
Can you answer the following question?
How could anyone love a God, or a Goddess, threatening you of eternal
torture in case you don't love He or She?
That's bizarre.
How could even just an atom of sincerity reside in that love, with
such an explicit horrible threat?
I hope you don't mind my frankness and the naïvety of my questioning.
Bruno
Roger Clough, [email protected]
9/19/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: John Mikes
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-18, 17:17:40
Subject: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
Ha ha: so not consciousness is the 'thing', but 'intelligence'? or
is this one also a function (of the brain towards the self?) who is
the self? how does the brain
DO something�牋
(as a homunculus?) on its own? Any suggestions?
John M牋牋牋�
On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:07 AM, Roger Clough <[email protected]>
wrote:
Hi Craig Weinberg
IMHO conscousness is not really anything in itself,
it is what the brain makes of its contents that the self
perceives. The self is intelligence, which is
able to focus all pertinent brain activity to a unified point.
Roger Clough, [email protected]
9/18/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end."
Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Craig Weinberg
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-17, 23:43:08
Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Monday, September 17, 2012 11:02:16 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:39 AM, Craig Weinberg 爓rote:
> I understand that, but it still assumes that there is a such thing
as a set
> of functions which could be identified and reproduced that cause
> consciousness. I don't assume that, because consciousness isn't like
> anything else. It is the source of all functions and appearances,
not the
> effect of them. Once you have consciousness in the universe, then
it can be
> enhanced and altered in infinite ways, but none of them can
replace the
> experience that is your own.
No, the paper does *not* assume that there is a set of functions that
if reproduced will will cause consciousness. It assumes that something
like what you are saying is right.
By assume I mean the implicit assumptions which are unstated in the
paper. The thought experiment comes out of a paradox arising from
assumptions about qualia and the brain which are both false in my
view. I see the brain as the flattened qualia of human experience.
>>> > This is the point of the thought experiment. The limitations
of all
>>> > forms of
>>> > measurement and perception preclude all possibility of there
ever being
>>> > a
>>> > such thing as an exhaustively complete set of third person
behaviors of
>>> > any
>>> > system.
>>> >
>>> > What is it that you don't think I understand?
>>>
>>> What you don't understand is that an exhaustively complete set of
>>> behaviours is not required.
>>
>>
>> Yes, it is. Not for prosthetic enhancements, or repairs to a
nervous
>> system, but to replace a nervous system without replacing the
person who is
>> using it, yes, there is no set of behaviors which can ever be
exhaustive
>> enough in theory to accomplish that. You might be able to do it
>> biologically, but there is no reason to trust it unless and until
someone
>> can be walked off of their brain for a few weeks or months and
then walked
>> back on.
>>
>>
>> The replacement components need only be within the engineering
tolerance
>> of the nervous system components. This is a difficult task but it
is
>> achievable in principle.
>
>
> You assume that consciousness can be replaced, but I understand
exactly why
> it can't. You can believe that there is no difference between
scooping out
> your brain stem and replacing it with a functional equivalent as
long as it
> was well engineered, but to me it's a completely misguided notion.
> Consciousness doesn't exist on the outside of us. Engineering only
deals
> with exteriors. If the universe were designed by engineers, there
could be
> no consciousness.
Yes, that is exactly what the paper assumes. Exactly that!
It still is modeling the experience of qualia as having a
quantitative relation with the ratio of brain to non-brain. That
isn't the only way to model it, and I use a different model.
>> I assume that my friends have not been replaced by robots. If
they have
>> been then that means the robots can almost perfectly replicate
their
>> behaviour, since I (and people in general) am very good at
picking up even
>> tiny deviations from normal behaviour. The question then is, if
the function
>> of a human can be replicated this closely by a machine does that
mean the
>> consciousness can also be replicated? The answer is yes, since
otherwise we
>> would have the possibility of a person having radically different
>> experiences but behaving normally and being unaware that their
experiences
>> were different.
>
>
> The answer is no. A cartoon of Bugs Bunny has no experiences but
behaves
> just like Bugs Bunny would if he had experiences. You are eating
the menu.
And if it were possible to replicate the behaviour without the
experiences - i.e. make a zombie - it would be possible to make a
partial zombie, which lacks some experiences but behaves normally and
doesn't realise that it lacks those experiences. Do you agree that
this is the implication? If not, where is the flaw in the reasoning?
The word zombie implies that you have an expectation of
consciousness but there isn't any. That is a fallacy from the start,
since there is not reason to expect a simulation to have any
experience at all. It's not a zombie, it's a puppet.
A partial zombie is just someone who has brain damage, and yes if
you tried to replace enough of a person's brain with a non-
biological material, you would get brain damage, dementia, coma, and
death.
Craig
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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