Come on Craig, admit you wrote that. It's the last paragraph that is the dead give-away.
On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:07:59 PM UTC+11, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > A Quora answer to the following question. Nothing new for me here > probably, but It's maybe organized in a more concise way. > > >> Philosophy: If human beings are nothing more than matter, why are you >> conscious as >> yourself?<http://www.quora.com/Philosophy/If-human-beings-are-nothing-more-than-matter-why-are-you-conscious-as-yourself> >> The implication of materialism is that we are in essence wet robots, >> without free will, just chemical reactions. But if this is true and we are >> conscious, then does it logically follow that all chemical reactions have >> "consciousness" to some degree? If the human mind is just an extremely >> advanced computer, then at what point does "consciousness" occur? >> > > We don’t know that chemical reactions are unconscious, but if they were, > then it makes sense that the entire universe would also be unconscious. It > is very tricky to examine the issue of consciousness and to draw parallels > within common experience without unintentionally smuggling in our own > expectations from consciousness itself. This is the Petito principii or > circular reasoning which derails most fair considerations of consciousness > before they even begin in earnest. > > Unlike a clock which is made up of gears, or a particular sized pile of > hay, the addition of consciousness has no conceivable consequence to the > physical function of a body. While we can observe a haystack burst into > flames because it has grown too hot, we cannot look at the behavior of a > human body see any special difference from the behavior of any other > physical body. There is complexity, but complexity alone need not point to > anything beyond an adjacency of simple parts and isolated chains of effects. > > Just as no degree of complication within a clock’s mechanism would > suddenly turn into a Shakespearean sonnet, the assumption of universal > substitution is not necessarily appropriate for all phenomena, and for > consciousness in particular. To get a color image, for instance, we need to > print in colored dots, not black and white. Color TV programs cannot be > broadcast over a monochrome display without losing their color. > > Unlike chemical or mechanical transformation, the nature of awareness is > not implicated in the shuffling of material particles from one place or > another. Any natural force can be used to do that. We have no scientific > reason to insist that conscious participation and aesthetic appreciation is > derived from some simpler functioning of complex systems. To the contrary, > ‘complexity’, and ‘system’ can only make sense in the context of a window > of perception and attention. Without some teleological intent to see one > part as part of a whole, and to compare remembered events with current > perceptions, there is no such thing as ‘function’ at all. > > There are several important points wrapped up in this question, which I > will try to sum up. > > *1. The failure to consider consciousness metaphysically.* > > This is the most important and most intractable issue, for three reasons: > > > - because it is difficult for anyone to try to put their mind outside > of mind. It’s annoying, and winds up feeling foolish and disoriented. > - because it is difficult in particular for the very people who need > most to get past the difficulty. I have found that most people who are > good > with logic and scientific reasoning are not necessarily capable of doing > what others can. The skillset appears to be neurological, like handedness > or gender orientation. > - because those who do have difficulty with thinking this way are > often not used to intellectual challenges that escape their grasp, their > reaction is so defensive that they react with intolerance. It’s not their > fault, but it cannot be cured it seems. Some people cannot see 3-D Magic > Eye art. Some cannot program their way out of a paper bag. In this case it > is the ability to consider consciousness from a prospective rather than a > retrospective view which can prove so inaccessible to so many people, that > frothing at the mouth and babbling about unicorns, magic, and the > supernatural is considered a reasonable and scientific, skeptical > response. > Of course, it is none of those things, but it takes a lot of patience and > courage to be able to recognize one’s own prejudices, especially when we > are used to being the ones telling others about their biases. > > > *2. The taboo against metaphysics, panpsychism, and transrationality* > > Long after Einstein, Gödel, and Heisenberg shattered the Humpty Dumpty > certainties of classical math and physics, we are still trying to piece him > back together. Regardless of how much we learn about the strange properties > of matter, time, energy, biology, and neurology, there are a huge number of > very intelligent people who are convinced that we will only know the truth > about the universe when it all looks like a vast deterministic mechanism. > > The compulsion to reduce awareness to passive mathematical or physical > states is ironic, given that the defense of automaticity is often > accompanied by very hands on personal intention. Even when it is pointed > out that arguing against free will is futile (since someone without free > will could not change their own opinion about it even if they wanted to, > let alone someone else’s opinion), the mind of the determined determinist > will always find a way of insist upon being in the right, even when they > are ultimately sawing of the limb that they are sitting on. > > When it comes to anything that suggests the possibility of non-human > awareness, many people not only become personally uncomfortable, but they > become socially uncomfortable as well. The taboo against unconventional > views on science (even when backed by anthropological universality) is so > pervasive and xenophobic that it is career suicide for a working scientist > to publicly acknowledge them in any but the most condescending tones. > > *3. The pathetic fallacy* > > The pathetic fallacy is to take a metaphor in which some inanimate object > is given a human quality (“The camera loves you”), and take it literally. > While I count myself among those who once saw computation and pattern as > being the only ingredient necessary for awareness or life, my understanding > now is that no pattern can exist without a capacity for pattern > recognition. The ability to receive and make sense of the real world is not > a matter of generic relations of disembodied bits of “information”, but is > in fact the concrete reality of the cosmos. The universe does not exist for > us humans, but it cannot exist as silent, unconscious, intangible physics > for billions of years and then suddenly invent the whole of sensation, > emotion, intuition, cognition, etc, just for some hominids on this > backwater planet. It now strikes me as profoundly anthropocentric to > imagine that the entire universe could be devoid of perceptual content > until life evolved. > > In my view, the universe itself is nothing but a continuum of qualities of > consciousness. These qualities, however, relate to experienced contexts. We > cannot take the human-ness out of a human and put it into a machine. > Biology has mechanisms and performs computation, but if that’s it was doing > then the inside of the brain would look like logic, not like sex and > violence and musical theater. > -- 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.
