On Friday, March 15, 2013 12:23:42 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:32 PM, Craig Weinberg > <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:> > > wrote: > > > A wheel is just [...] a mouse trap does not [...] it doesn't care >> about [...] it doesn't matter to [...] >> > > This is really getting tedious. Again and again you are decreeing what is > and what is not so but you're not even attempting to give us a reason for > believing it is true except for your word. You're not the Pope and I don't > believe what the Pope says without evidence or rational argument either. >
You can believe what you like. I have not met anyone else who would even argue these kinds of self-evident facts. I use simple and obvious examples like a wheel and a mousetrap because no argument is required - everyone knows what happens with wheels and mousetraps so that it should not be controversial to say that they are devices which have no intentional capacities. It would be different if they arose naturally, then we might allow that they are part of a larger or smaller intentional system, but since we constructed them specifically to do what we want, we can be certain that there is nothing that they want. > > >> As a practical matter both you and I judge that something is conscious >>> in exactly the same way, we look for intelligence. >>> >> >> > No, I would generally look for movement. Breathing. >> > > So when I undergo anesthesia I'm conscious but when Einstein holds his > breath he's not. > If you are breathing then you might be able to sustain consciousness. Holding your breath doesn't last long enough to consider, it isn't a stable condition. The less time you have to observe something like that, the more likely that you will make a mistake. A mannequin or a sock puppet can fool you for a moment, but in time, the artificiality and unconsciousness is revealed. > > >> >> ESP parapsychology junk science. >>> >> >> >You must be psychic to know the results of experiments before they are >> even designed. >> > > These sort of experiments have been performed ad nauseam for at least 2 > centuries and have produced null results, it's time to move on. > Nah, we have barely begun. The more we know about communication in plants and bacteria, the more we see that consciousness is universal. > > > Machines are getting better in some ways, but not in any way that >> matters to anything except human minds. >> > > A machine mattered very much to 2 champion human minds who got their ass > beaten on Jeopardy by a certain machine. > A person made a machine to rapidly access a pool of data and parse it into a fixed format for other people to marvel at. Watson is an automated file cabinet of pre-loaded trivia. > > >> > In your universe, the Free Will noise either exists for a reason or it >> does not. > > > Obviously > > > You don't seem to allow that it could have a reason, >> > > Not at all, there might be a reason people believe in free will just as > there is a reason children believe in Santa Claws. > What might be the reason? > > > nor do you allow that the belief in free will could be random >> > > Not at all, there might be no reason; but one thing is certain, there is a > reason people believe in "free will" or there is not a reason people > believe in "free will" > Either way, it is not their choice, nor is it yours. You disbelieve in free will for a reason or for no reason, but you can't change the reason so it is not your opinion at all. > > > You clearly believe that people intentionally choose their belief in >> free will and that they could and should correct this error by educating >> themselves in a particular way. >> > > Maybe, or maybe some people are just hardwired that way. > What about those who aren't? Craig > > John K Clark > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
