On Monday, February 24, 2014 12:16:26 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > > On 24 February 2014 16:59, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> You seem to be answering a different question. I thought it was a direct >>> entailment of your theory that no part of the brain could be substituted >>> purely functionally without affecting the consciousness of the person >>> associated with that brain. >>> >> >> No, I never said that at all. People have a whole hemisphere of their >> brain surgically removed and it doesn't affect their human capacities >> nearly to the extent that we might guess, and it doesn't affect their >> consciousness itself at all (they still wake up being themselves). >> > > Well, removed is one thing and substituted is another. So to be clear, in > your theory would it be possible for me to have part of my brain > substituted digitally and not be aware of any difference? >
Yes, it would be possible to have part of your brain removed and not be aware of any difference also - my point though is, 'so what?' You can be dead and not know the difference either, presumably. > > >> >>> Suppose such a substitution of part of my brain, along the lines >>> discussed in the wiki, were actually made, and neither I nor any third >>> party could tell the difference. Wouldn't that directly contradict your >>> theory? If not, why not? >>> >> >> If a doctor amputates a patient's leg, but then put the foot back on the >> end of the wooden leg, and the foot worked so that neither the patient or >> anyone else could tell the difference, wouldn't that directly contradict >> the theory that wooden legs can't support real feet? >> > > Well, the patient would notice that they no longer had any sensation > between their hip and their foot, I suppose, so no, it wouldn't contradict > that theory. For this to be an adequate analogy, no relevant aspect of the > patient's pre-operative functional capabilities would be different. But my > question is reasonable, isn't it? Perhaps you could just try to answer my > it directly without the use of analogies. > > David > -- 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.
