On 30 January 2014 16:00, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 1/29/2014 5:06 PM, David Nyman wrote: > > On 29 January 2014 22:15, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> The problem that concerns me about this way of looking at things is that >>> any and all behaviour associated with consciousness - including, crucially, >>> the articulation of our very thoughts and beliefs about conscious phenomena >>> - can at least in principle be exhausted by an extrinsic account. But if >>> this be so, it is very difficult indeed to understand how such extrinsic >>> behaviours could possibly make reference to any "intrinsic" remainder, even >>> were its existence granted. It isn't merely that any postulated remainder >>> would be redundant in the explanation of such behaviour, but that it is >>> hardly possible to see how an inner dual could even be accessible in >>> principle to a complete (i.e. causally closed) extrinsic system of reference >>> in the first place. >> >> >> Right, because the extrinsic perspective is blind to the limits of causal >> closure. > > > But I'm afraid the problem is precisely that it behaves as if it is NOT in > fact blind to such limits. As Bruno points out in a recent response to John > Clark, if we rely on the causal closure of the extrinsic account (and which > of us does not?) then we commit ourselves to the view that there must be > such an account, at some level, of any behaviour to which we might otherwise > wish to impute a conscious origin. However, my point above is that the > problem is in fact even worse than this. In fact, it amounts to a paradox. > > The existence of a causally closed extrinsic account forces us to the view > that the very thoughts and utterances - even our own - that purport to refer > to irreducibly conscious phenomena must also be fully explicable > extrinsically. But how then could any such sequence of extrinsic events > possibly be linked to anything outside its causally-closed circle of > explanation? To put this baldly, even whilst asserting with absolute > certainty "the fact that I am conscious" I am forced nonetheless to accept > that this very assertion need have nothing to do (and, more strongly, cannot > have anything to do) with the fact that I am conscious! > > I take no credit for being the originator of this insight, > > > But you have explained it well. And it's not at all clear to me that > Bruno's computational theory avoids this paradox. It seems there will > still, in the UD computation, be a closed account of the physical processes. > No doubt it will be computationally linked with some provable sentences, > which Bruno wants to then identify with beliefs. But this still leaves > beliefs as epiphenomena of the physical processes; even if comp explains > them both.
I don't think there is a problem if consciousness is an epiphenomenon. If you start looking for consciousness being an extra thing with (perhaps) its own separate causal efficacy, that's where problems arise. -- 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.
