On Saturday, January 19, 2013 6:50:19 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Craig Weinberg > <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > > >> There are those who believe that the very atoms are necessary in order > to > >> preserve a consciousness: making an arbitrarily close copy won't do. > From > >> what you have said before, this is what you think, but it goes against > any > >> widely accepted biological or physical scientific theory. > > > > > > Since there is no widely accepted biological or physical scientific > theory > > of what consciousness is, that doesn't bother me very much. > > The assumption by scientists is that consciousness is caused by the > brain,
We could also assume that ground beef is caused by the grocery store, but that doesn't tell us about ground beef. > and if brain function doesn't change, consciousness doesn't > change either. So swapping out atoms in the brain for different atoms > of the same kind leaves brain function unchanged and therefore leaves > consciousness unchanged also. An idea can change the function of the brain as much as a chemical change - maybe more so, especially if we are talking about a life altering idea. To me, the fact that physics seems more generic to us than chemistry which seems more generic than biology is a function of the ontology of matter rather than a mechanism for consciousness. The whole idea of brain function or consciousness being 'unchanged' is broken concept to begin with. It assumes a normative baseline at an arbitrary level of description. In reality, of course brain function and consciousness are constantly changing, sometimes because of chemistry, sometimes in spite of it. > Also, swapping out atoms in the brain > for different atoms of a different but related type, such as a > different isotope, leaves brain function unchanged and leaves > consciousness unchanged. This is because the brain works using > chemical rather than nuclear reactions. That's because on the level of nuclear reactions there is no brain. That doesn't mean that changing atoms has no effect on some non-human level of experience, only that our native experience is distant enough that we don't notice a difference. Some people might notice a difference, who knows? I wouldn't think that people could tell the difference between different kinds of light of the same spectrum, but they can, even down to a geographic specificity in some cases. It is an assumption but it is > consistent with every observation ever made. > The consistency doesn't surprise me, it's the interpretation which I see as an unscientific assumption. 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/-/Iq1-7vNHSRIJ. 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.
