On 3/6/2014 11:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 06 Mar 2014, at 20:06, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/6/2014 7:48 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
(b) think computation is intrinsically conscious
But this wording is worst, as it looks like it insists that a computation (or some
computation) are conscious. But only a first person is conscious, and a first person
is nothing capable of being defined in any 3p way.
For example, a brain cannot think. Brain activity cannot think, a computer cannot
think, a computation cannot think, I would say. But I can still say yes to the doctor,
because I can believe that my consciousness is related to an infinity of number
relation in arithmetic, and that a brain or a machine might make it possible for that
consciousness to be manifestable here and now, with hopefully the right relative measure.
If it were not manifested here and now, what would it be conscious of?
Well, either in some other "here and now", as this is an indexical, or of something else
(in some altered state of consciousness which might have nothing to do with "here and
now"), or it might just not be conscious at all.
What I am saying here is just that 3p things can only be conscious in some metaphorical
way, like when we say that a machine can think, which really means only that a machine
can support a thinking/conscious first person agent.
And without support...no consciousness.
The conscious-thinker has to be a first person, not a body. The first lesson of
computationalism is that "I" am not "my body", I own or borrow it only. In principle, I
can get another one.
Not a body I can understand (although I think a body and even an environment may be
necessary). But you also say "not a computation".
Brent
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