On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 09:24:13PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: > OOPS! I hit "send" when I intended to "close" my email. So here's another > try at replying. > > On 9/16/2014 9:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >Hi Russell, Hi Others, > > > >Sorry for the delay. Some comments on your (Russell) MGA paper appear below. > > > > > >On 25 Aug 2014, at 00:30, Russell Standish wrote: > > > >>On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 01:22:51PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: > >>>On 8/24/2014 12:55 AM, Russell Standish wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>I don't think that can be the case. I don't see how it can be anything > >>>>to be like a tree, yet trees are clearly DNA-based beings. So you > >>>>would get skewed results if you were to reason as though you could be > >>>>a tree. > >>> > >>>Exactly. It's a reductio on the pattern of argument you used to > >>>prove ants can't be conscious. I used it to prove ants can't be DNA > >>>based. > >> > >>I don't understand. How is having DNA relevant to having > >>consciousness? It is quite plausible that non-DNA-based forms are > >>conscious (eg a computer running a suitable AI program), and that > >>some DNA-based forms are not conscious (trees, for example). > > DNA isn't relevant to consciousness. It was just an example of > something we share with ants, to point out that an argument that > ants aren't conscious because if they were we'd be ants is invalid. >
It is necessary to be conscious to be a member of the reference class. It is probably not necessary to have DNA, but even if it were, we'd also have to be conscious. So it is not correct to reason as though DNA were the only relevant factor. > > But why is "consciousness" or "understanding the argument" the > relevant attribute of "us"? Why not "breathes oxygnen" or > "metabolized carbohydrates"? The anthropic argument is based on the brute fact of being. I take this as being identical to being conscious. How could it be otherwise? Breathing oxygen, or metabolising carbohydrates is not relevant to being. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 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.
