On 8/12/2014 6:20 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 1:57 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/11/2014 5:13 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 12:22 AM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Having now read the paper,
Ok, I finished it too. Russell's "state of the art" is a very nice
introduction to
the MGA and Maudlin's argument. Very clear and concise, helped me organize
my
thoughts on these.
ISTM that the "counterfactual" part of the argument is the only part
that I
/really/ don't get. Or rather ISTM that it demonstrates that
consciousness
can't supervene on physical computational states, because those states
can't
know anything about these counterfactuals, which by definition don't
happen.
I think the point here is that if we assume consciousness supervenes on
matter,
then we are forced to reject comp, by reductio ad absurdum.
I think the mistake, the reductio, is the assumption that consciousness can
supervene on this piece of matter without reference to the world in which
the matter
exists.
This smells of dualism. What is "the world in which the matter exists" if not
matter?
Sure it's matter. It's as much or as little dualism as the idea that consciousness
supervenes on material processes. I'm not much concerned with onotological labels - find
a model that works and then worry about what to call it is my attitude. "Matter" in
modern physics is already so abstract it inspires questions like, "What makes the
equations fly?"
Brent
This fallacy is encouraged by considering conscious thoughts to be about
abstractions like arithmetic and dreams (as though dreams did not derive
from reality).
Dreams both derive from and are reality. Reality is everything that is, no?
Telmo.
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