On Thursday, September 27, 2012 7:45:07 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:30 PM, Craig Weinberg > <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > > >> I object to the idea that consciousness will cause a brain or other > >> machine to behave in a way not predictable by purely physical laws. > >> Some people, like Craig Weinberg, seem to believe that this is > >> possible but it is contrary to all science. This applies even if the > >> whole universe is really just a simulation, because what we observe is > >> at the level of the simulation. > > > > > > That is not what I believe at all. I have corrected you and others on > this > > many times but you won't hear it. Nothing unusual needs to happen in the > > brain for ordinary consciousness to take place, it's just that physics > has > > nothing to say about whether billions of synapses will suddenly begin > firing > > in complex synchronized patterns or not. Physics doesn't care. Can > neurons > > fire when conditions are right? Yes. Can our thoughts and intentions > > directly control conditions in the brain? YES. Of course. Obviously. > > Otherwise we wouldn't care any more about the human brain than we would > a > > wasps nest. It's not that physics needs to be amended, it is that > experience > > is part of physics, and physics is part of experience. > > If physics cannot predict even in theory when the neurons will fire > then *by definition* the neurons behave contrary to physics. >
If the neurons fire based on the participation of a personal identity in response to events in a person's life, then how could physics predict them without predicting a person's entire life? Craig > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/WbDsasW2s9EJ. 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.
