On Thursday, February 27, 2014 4:13:22 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > On 26 February 2014 23:58, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > > > >> "The alien hand syndrome, as originally defined, was used to describe > >> cases involving anterior corpus callosal lesions producing involuntary > >> movement and a concomitant inability to distinguish the affected hand > from > >> an examiner's hand when these were placed in the patient's unaffected > hand. > >> In recent years, acceptable usage of the term has broadened > considerably, > >> and has been defined as involuntary movement occurring in the context > of > >> feelings of estrangement from or personification of the affected limb > or its > >> movements. Three varieties of alien hand syndrome have been reported, > >> involving lesions of the corpus callosum alone, the corpus callosum > plus > >> dominant medial frontal cortex, and posterior cortical/subcortical > areas. A > >> patient with posterior alien hand syndrome of vascular aetiology is > reported > >> and the findings are discussed in the light of a conceptualisation of > >> posterior alien hand syndrome as a disorder which may be less > associated > >> with specific focal neuropathology than are its callosal and > >> callosal-frontal counterparts." - > http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/68/1/83.full > > > > > > This kind of alienation from the function of a limb would seem to > contradict > > functionalism. If functionalism identifies consciousness with function, > then > > it would seem problematic that a functioning limb could be seen as > estranged > > from the personal awareness, is it is really no different from a zombie > in > > which the substitution level is set at the body level. There is no > damage to > > the arm, no difference between one arm and another, and yet, its is felt > to > > be outside of one's control and its sensations are felt not to be your > > sensations. > > > > This would be precisely the kind of estrangement that I would expect to > > encounter during a gradual replacement of the brain with any inorganic > > substitute. At the level at which food becomes non-food, so too would > the > > brain become non-brain, and any animation of the nervous system would > fail > > to be incorporated into personal awareness. The living brain could still > > learn to use the prosthetic, and ultimately imbue it with its own > > articulation and familiarity to a surprising extent, but it is a one way > > street and the prosthetic has no capacity to find the personal awareness > and > > merge with it. > > This example shows that if there is a lesion in the neural circuitry > it affects consciousness. If you fix the lesion such that the > circuitry works properly but the consciousness is affected (keeping > the environmental input constant) then that implies that consciousness > is generated by something other than the brain. >
Paying attention to the circuitry is a red herring. What I'm bringing up is how dissociation of functions identified with the self does not make sense for the functionalist view of consciousness. How do you give a program 'alien subroutine syndrome'? Why does the program make a distinction between the pure function of the subroutine and some feeling of belonging that is generated by something other than the program? Craig > > > -- > 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.
