On 16 Aug 2014, at 21:48, meekerdb wrote:
On 8/16/2014 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 15 Aug 2014, at 02:24, meekerdb wrote:
On 8/14/2014 4:58 PM, LizR wrote:
On 15 August 2014 06:51, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 8/14/2014 6:45 AM, Pierz wrote:
That is a weird assumption to me and completely contrary to my
own intuition. Certainly a person born and kept alive in sensory
deprivation will be extremely limited in the complexity of the
mental states s/he can develop, but I would certainly expect
that such a person would have consciousness, ie., that there is
something it would be like to be such a person. Indeed I expect
that such a person would suffer horribly. Such a conclusion
requires no mystical view of consciousness. It is based purely
on biology - we are programmed with biological expectations/
predispositions which when not met, cause us to suffer. As much
as the brain can't be separated completely from other matter, it
*does* seem to house consciousness in a semi-autonomous fashion.
So how did you suffer in the womb?
But there's a lot of environmental interaction in the womb.
You're undercutting your own case! To do a 180 degree, it would
make more sense to claim that consciousness requires an
environment because even before we're born we're already getting
plenty of stimuli.
A fetus does get some environmental interaction, but I don't see
how that proves it is necessary. It might be interesting to look
at those few sad cases in which women have been in a coma during
the latter part of their pregnancy. Presumably the fetus would
have received less stimulus although there still would have been
some and it would be hard to tell whether a recently born baby was
more or less conscious.
You need to imagine a person put into an artificial womb with no
light or sound etc from the moment they start to develop a
nervous system, and consider whether that person would be
conscious.
I think they would be severely deficient. Remember I think there
can be degrees of consciousness, while Bruno thinks it's all-or-
nothing.
It is all or nothing, but there is a variety of consciousness
state. It is like being positive, which is all-or-nothing, despite
some very little positive real numbers can be close negative real
numbers.
You cannot be half conscious, you can be completely drunk, tough,
and quite disconnected from you mundane consciousness, and
plausibly with a notion of numbness for such case.
Unconsciousness is not a first person experience.
So do you think my dog is conscious?
Yes. Plausibility = 99,999998 %
The koi in my pond?
Yes. Plausibility = 97%
The snails?
Yes. Plausibility = 98%
The algae?
Yes. Plausibility = 61% (may be on a different time scale).
In no case can I be sure, but I am *pretty* sure for the dogs, the
snails and the koi.
(But when I read the press and the media those days, sometimes I am
not sure even for the humans <sigh>)
Bruno
Brent
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