On Sunday, February 23, 2014 12:53:00 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > > > On Sunday, February 23, 2014, Craig Weinberg > <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > > > > On Saturday, February 22, 2014 2:05:47 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > > > On Saturday, February 22, 2014, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Saturday, February 22, 2014 12:29:04 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > On 20 February 2014 09:24, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > > >>> You're assuming that precise molecular assembly will necessarily yield > a > >>> coherent dynamic process, but that may not be the case at all. If you > put > >>> random people in the proper places in a baseball diamond, and give the > one > >>> in the middle a baseball, they don't necessarily play a baseball game. > >> > >> > >> If you're right then there would be something missing, something > >> mysterious, and there would be evidence for it much simpler experiments > than > >> complete assembly of a human body. For example, you might be able to > >> substitute some chemical on a cell for an equivalent chemical and > observe > >> the cell stop functioning even though everything seems to be > biochemically > >> in order. That would be direct evidence for your theory. It's > scientifically > >> testable. > > > > > > What's missing is the entire history of experiences which relate to > whatever > > it is that you think you're copying. > > > > We don't exist on the levels of cells or molecules. If there were no > human > > looking down at cells in a microscope, and we had only the microcosmic > > perspective to go from, there would be nothing that could be done to > build a > > human experience. No configuration of proteins and ion channels is going > to > > taste like strawberries to any of the molecules or cells. All of these > > structures relate only to a particular level of description. If you copy > the > > sheet music of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" you don't know if it is the > > Rolling Stones version or the Devo version, and neither could be > predicted > > or generated purely from the notes. > > That's your theory, but the theory should have some straightforward > observational consequences. For example, if some of the matter in a > cell is replaced in a laboratory, then the cell would stop > functioning. This would confound the scientists because according to > current theories it ought to function normally provided all the matter > is there in the right configuration. > > > We don't see it at the sub-cellular level, we see it beginning at the > biological level as tissue-rejection. The richer the experience, the longer > the history, and the more important it is in defining itself exclusively. > Biology is more proprietary than chemistry, zoology is more proprietary > than biology, anthropology is more proprietary than zoology, etc. It's not > that some material fragment of a cell should be irreplaceable, it's that > living cells should be easily created from primordial soup. Your theory > misses the whole other half of the universe which coheres from the top down. > > We can take out small words or skip letters of a sentence and still be > understood, but we can't understand a sentence as a whole if we don't know > what the bigger words in it mean. > > > Tissue rejection is caused by well understood mechanisms whereby the body > recognises foreign protein markers on the transplanted tissue. That's the > only thing you have said above which is close to an observational > consequence of your theory, and it doesn't support it. > > > The body's recognition of foreign protein markers is a lower level > manifestation of the mismatch of higher level zoological history. It is a > sign that on this level of description, tissue is not naively exchangeable. > The public side is a spatial story about bodies nested within bodies > performing repeating functions. The private side is completely orthogonal. > It is an phenomenal story about tension and release, identity, etc. The > public side is a closed circuit, but it is closed by the narrowness of the > private perspective. The universe fills in the appearance of closure and > mechanism, just as our visual perception fills in repeating patterns. > > > The body's recognition of foreign tissue is well understood: the > mechanism, the reasons for it, and how to bypass it for the purpose of > organ transplant. Your theory doesn't add anything to that explanatio >
My theory is not supposed to add anything to that, or any other physical explanation other than to place it in a much larger context. Knowing that automobiles are actually driven by human beings with lives that last for decades doesn't change the civil engineer's explanation of the mechanism of traffic, the reasons for it, and how to bypass it for the purpose of efficient commuting. If we decided to replace someone's brain, however, with the driver of a Google car, the result would be that we have a dead person and a computer that isn't doing anything. To assert that our understanding of physics is complete without having any idea at all how consciousness could arise within it, or why it plausibly would, is no better than any kind of religious creation myth - regardless of the utility of the physics itself. Geocentric astronomy was ok, but heliocentric astronomy is better - not because it provides more accurate measurements for launching rockets, but because it is a more complete understanding - it helps us make more sense out of everything. Your view does not help make more sense out of everything, only the half of everything which can be measured and quantified. Craig > ... -- 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.
