On 01 May 2013, at 16:35, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote:
>> The facts are undeniable, either Charles Darwin was wrong or
consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence. And I don't think
Charles Darwin was wrong.
> I don't think Charles Darwin ever wrote anything about
consciousness.
Probably because he thought it was so obvious he didn't need to
spell it out, but if you insist I will spell it out. Again.
Darwin's idea was that he was the product of Evolution. Darwin knew
that Evolution could see intelligent behavior and select for it.
Darwin knew that Evolution could not even see consciousness much
less select for it.
Can you give a reference where Darwin mentions consciousness?
Note that I agree with you that consciousness is a product of
intelligence. But Intelligence is more easy than consciousness.
Competence and stupidity asks for more work. For intelligence you need
not more than Peano Arithmetic cognitive ability. It already makes you
humble and modest and guessing about something bigger than you.
Darwin knew for a fact that he was conscious.
Really? References please.
And I know for a fact that Darwin was a intelligent man, therefore I
conclude that Charles Darwin thought that consciousness was a
unavoidable consequence of intelligence or his theory was wrong.
Darwin did not think his theory was wrong and neither do I.
Darwin theory must extends to the origin of the natural laws, to be
consistent with computationalism. But you need to grasp the FPI and go
farer than step two to see this.
> I want to avoid pain and seek pleasure.
Yes, and there were probably mutant animals that found sex painful
and so avoided it and grievous bodily injury pleasurable and so
sought it out, but you and I are not like that because none of our
ancestors were like that, in fact mutants of that sort left no
descendants at all.
>> We know why Evolution produced intelligence but not how.
> Oh we know a lot about how already. It's just harder to grasp if
you reject emergence.
I don't reject it, I just want to know the difference between saying
"shit happens" and saying "it happened because of emergence". Yes,
complicated systems behave in ways that are, well, complicated; but
tell me something I didn't know.
> One possibility, of course, is that consciousness is the
fundamental stuff.
Yes, I think that is by far the most likely possibility! But if that
is indeed true then its meaningless to ask, as so many on this list
do, what consciousness is made of because "fundamental stuff" is the
point where your chain of "what is that made of?" questions come to
a end. That's what fundamental means. So if its really fundamental
then after saying that consciousness is the way data feels like when
it is being processed there is nothing more to say.
You are using an identity thesis which can make sense for highly
infinite machine, but is refuted for machines most reasonable quasi-
finite entities.
If you attach consciousness to a machine, the machine will attach her
consciousness to an infinity of machines, and that infinity has
testable consequences when the machine look below her substitution
level.
Bruno
John K Clark
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