> On 16 Oct 2014, at 11:59 pm, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 16 October 2014 13:31, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> If consciousness is merely a side-effect of conscious-like behaviour then >> zombies are impossible. > > What do you mean by a side effect? Do you mean something that would > necessarily be "physically incoherent" (according to Graziano, and correctly > so, given his assumptions)? IOW, something-or-other that is over and above an > exhaustive analysis of physically-defined entities or processes? He clearly > states that believing in such things is unnecessary and wrong.
A necessary side-effect roughly equates to the idea of weak emergence. >> I still maintain that the consciousness-deniers can't really think that >> they're unconscious since that would be absurd. > > As to what consciousness-deniers can or cannot think, in this case why not > take him at his word? He clearly states that in his view and that of his > colleagues *there is no subjective impression*. What exists, in his view, are > computations (or more correctly their physical instantiations) and these are > fully sufficient to account for all the internal and external manifestations > (including those labelled as "perceptions", "thoughts" and "feelings") we > naively take to be "subjective impressions". Consequently, he concludes, > there is no need whatsoever, on this basis, to believe in any such > impressions. I agree that this conclusion amounts to a reductio ad absurdum, > but he clearly believes it and at least he's done us the favour of making > this abundantly clear. I think it's a matter of semantics. I'm sure Graziano experiences what I experience, given my use of the word "experience", but due to his understanding of what underpins this experience he chooses to say it doesn't really exist. It's as if someone chose to say life does not really exist on the grounds that it's all just chemistry. -- 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.
