On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:58 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy < [email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:22 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 9/21/2014 5:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 1:34 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Good point Brent and one on which I am also equivocal, which is why I >>> have been keen to tease out whether people are talking about consciousness >>> or the contents of consciousness, and to try to work out whether there is, >>> in fact, any difference. If there isn't, consciousness becomes something >>> like *elan vital*, a supposed magic extra that isn't in fact necessary >>> in explanatory terms - all that exists are "bundles of sensations" (or >>> however Hume phrased it). >>> >> >> But in materialism we still have a magic extra: matter itself. In the >> MUH math is the magic extra. I don't know of any theory that gets rid of >> all "magic" assumptions. >> >> >> True. But matter explains lots of other stuff. Consciousness as a pure >> potentiality, distinct from any content, doesn't explain anything. >> >> >> >>> >>> In reply to John's comment, we *don't* know that sure that certain >>> types of brain activity cause consciousness, that's a (very reasonable) >>> hypothesis based on the fact the two appear to be always correlated. >>> >> >> We don't even know if they are strongly correlated, because we don't >> know what else is conscious. >> >> >> And we don't know that other people are conscious. But as JKC pointed >> out we do know that things that affect our brain affect our consciousness. >> Quite aside from anesthesia and concussions that make it go away (modulo >> your theory that we merely forget), it's affected by whiskey and pot and >> salvia and LSD, and the effects are even amenable to some explanation at >> the molecular level. >> >> >> Is an insect swarm conscious? Is your computer? Are galaxies? The >> problem is that we might be confusing empathy for consciousness. It is >> clear that the more an organism is similar to us the more empathy we feel >> (human > monkey > cat > insect > bacteria, ...). >> >> >> That's true on Bruno's definition of consciousness. >> > > I don't understand what you're driving at. Telmo seems to be asserting > ignorance of types of statements concerning consciousness. > Yes, this is all I'm claiming. > > If you negate this, don't you have to show your hand more than resorting > to discourse examples? > > >> But that's not the consciousness that we are told is indubitable and >> which we all intuititively know we have. >> > > This would be true concerning sufficiently rich machines as well...which > is why I don't see if/how your distinction leads anywhere. > > >> We attribute consciousness to other things as we perceive their behavior >> to be intelligent and goal directed; because that's how we recognize it in >> people: "How many fingers do you see?" "What day is it?" "Do you know >> where you are?". >> >> Brent >> >> -- >> 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 [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
