On Monday, March 17, 2014, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Sunday, March 16, 2014 1:02:08 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: >> >> >> >> >> On 14 March 2014 13:12, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2QXQu-HGE >>> >>> A brief, handy rebuttal to materialistic views of consciousness. I would >>> go further, and say that information, even though it is immaterial in its >>> conception, is still derived from the principles of object interaction. >>> Even when forms and functions are divorced from any particular physical >>> substance, they are still tethered to the third person omniscient view - >>> artifacts of communication *about* rather *appreciation of*. Real >>> experiences are not valued just because they inform us about something or >>> other, they are valued because of their intrinsic aesthetic and semantic >>> content. It’s not even content, it is the experience itself. Information >>> must be made evident through sensory participation, or it is nothing at all. >>> >>> The thing is, this happens in the brain as well. You look at something, >> neurons fire, and there is no obvious reason why that should result in a >> particular sensation rather than another, or any sensation at all. And yet >> it does. If it's magic, then why can't the same magic happen with the >> computer? If it isn't magic, but a natural effect, then why can't the same >> natural effect happen with the computer? >> > > For the same reason that words on a page can't write a book. Computers > host meaningless patterns which we use to represent ideas that we find > significant. The patterns are not even patterns on their own, just the > presence of billions of disconnected micro-phenomenal states. > But if you look at a brain the patterns in it are no more meaningful than the patterns in a computer, and the matter in it is no more meaningful than the matter in a computer. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
