On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The atoms in my brain don't have to know how to read Chinese. They only >> need to know how to be carbon, nitrogen, oxygen etc. atoms. The complex >> behaviour which is reading Chinese comes from the interaction of billions of >> these atoms doing their simple thing. > > > I don't think that is true. The other way around makes just as much sense of > not more: Reading Chinese is a simple behavior which drives the behavior of > billions of atoms to do a complex interaction. To me, it has to be both > bottom-up and top-down. It seems completely arbitrary prejudice to presume > one over the other just because we think that we understand the bottom-up so > well. > > Once you can see how it is the case that it must be both bottom-up and > top-down at the same time, the next step is to see that there is no > possibility for it to be a cause-effect relationship, but rather a dual > aspect ontological relation. Nothing is translating the functions of neurons > into a Cartesian theater of experience - there is nowhere to put it in the > tissue of the brain and there is no evidence of a translation from neural > protocols to sensorimotive protocols - they are clearly the same thing. If there is a top-down effect of the mind on the atoms then there we would expect some scientific evidence of this. Evidence would constitute, for example, neurons firing when measurements of transmembrane potentials, ion concentrations etc. suggest that they should not. You claim that such anomalous behaviour of neurons and other cells due to consciousness is widespread, yet it has never been experimentally observed. Why? >> If the atoms in my brain were put into a Chinese-reading configuration, >> either through a lot of work learning the language or through direct >> manipulation, then I would be able to understand Chinese. > > > It's understandable to assume that, but no I don't think it's like that. You > can't transplant a language into a brain instantaneously because there is no > personal history of association. Your understanding of language is not a > lookup table in space, it is made out of you. It's like if you walked around > with Google translator in your brain. You could enter words and phrases and > turn them into you language, but you would never know the language first > hand. The knowledge would be impersonal - accessible, but not woven into > your proprietary sense. I don't mean putting an extra module into the brain, I mean putting the brain directly into the same configuration it is put into by learning the language in the normal way. >> I'm sorry, but this whole passage is a non sequitur as far as the fading >> qualia thought experiment goes. You have to explain what you think would >> happen if part of your brain were replaced with a functional equivalent. > > > There is no functional equivalent. That's what I am saying. Functional > equivalence when it comes to a person is a non-sequitur. Not only is every > person unique, they are an expression of uniqueness itself. They define > uniqueness in a never-before-experienced way. This is a completely new way > of understanding consciousness and signal. Not as mechanism, but as > animism-mechanism. > > >> >> A functional equivalent would stimulate the remaining neurons the same as >> the part that is replaced. > > > No such thing. Does any imitation function identically to an original? In a thought experiment we can say that the imitation stimulates the surrounding neurons in the same way as the original. We can even say that it does this miraculously. Would such a device *necessarily* replicate the consciousness along with the neural impulses, or could the two be separated? >> The original paper says this is a computer chip but this is not necessary >> to make the point: we could just say that it is any device, not being the >> normal biological neurons. If consciousness is substrate-dependent (as you >> claim) then the device could do its job of stimulating the neurons normally >> while lacking or differing in consciousness. Since it stimulates the neurons >> normally you would behave normally. If you didn't then it would be a >> miracle, since your muscles would have to contract normally. Do you at least >> see this point, or do you think that your muscles would do something >> different? > > > I see the point completely. That's the problem is that you keep trying to > explain to me what is obvious, while I am trying to explain to you something > much more subtle and sophisticated. I can replace neurons which control my > muscles because muscles are among the most distant and replaceable parts of > 'me'. These nerves are outbound efferent nerves and the target muscle cells > are for the most part willing servants. The same goes for amputating my arm. > I can replace it in theory. What I am saying though is that amputating my > head is not even theoretically possible. Wherever my head is, that is where > I have to be. If I replace my brain with other parts, the more parts there > are the less of me there is left. The brain isn't like a computer though. > You can't just pull out something and then put it back in if it doesn't > work. In the brain, as soon as you screw it up, you get coma, death, > dementia, stroke, etc. It's part of a living creature made of smaller living > creatures. It doesn't matter how closely you think your substitute brain > acts like my brain, I am never going to be found in your substitute brain, > and the substitute brain will never even get close to working properly. > Computers do not work very well. Every time I turn on my stupid phone there > are like 25 updates, and I hardly do anything with it. Can you imagine how > unreliable a network the size of a synthetic brain would be? How easy it > would be to halt the thalamus program and kill you? It's wildly > overconfident and factually misguided to think of the self and the brain in > these terms. I see it like 19th century Jules Verne sci-fi now. It's just > silly and every week there are more studies which suggest that our > neuroscientific models continue to be more and more inadequate. They don't > add up. As I said, technical problems with computers are not relevant to the argument. The implant is just a device that has the correct timing of neural impulses. Would it necessarily preserve consciousness? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
