On 22 August 2013 13:20, chris peck <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Craig > > > am saying that the ontology of desire is impossible under strong > determinism. Deterministic and random processes cannot possibly produce > desire - not because desire is special, but because it doesn't make any > sense. You are talking about putting in a gas pedal on a bowling ball. > > > I think I can meet you half way and agree that in a determined universe > wants, desires and anxieties would be futile. They wouldn't make sense from > an adaptive point of view.
That's no more true for a determined universe than it is for a non-determined universe. > But I'm not convinced they make no logical sense. For example they could be > epiphenomena coming along for the ride, unnecessarily colouring the > unraveling of pre-written events. > > The determined universe might be inefficient, if you like, carrying along > with it baggage that isn't really used. The wants and anxieties would be > implied by the universe's initial conditions and not everything in those > conditions need be functional. I don't see a logical contradiction there. > > All the best. If it were possible to have the same behaviour without consciousness then consciousness would not have evolved - there would be no adaptive value to it. That is one reason why I think consciousness must be a necessary side-effect of intelligent behaviour, at least in organic machines such as we are. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
