Stathis, you wrote (among other things): *Whether I find it satisfactory or not is a different question. The point I was making is that people who find it satisfactory express this belief idea by claiming that consciousness does not exist. *
IMO if not otherwise, it DOES exist in our 'minds' (thoughts) whatever those are. Another question is the 'material' which requires an ID "satisfactory(?)" to most thinking persons (even then: questionable). Our physical figment is not enough. I have yet to find a definition for that darn Ccness (noun) - even for BEEING CONSCIOUS - a different topic - what we think we feel and use. We feel a lot. Science likes to use definite terms as long as they don't 'change' by new info. Life e.g. is(?) in many minds the carbon-water based 'bio' of our planet surface. I would stronger argue your " *"...any system is distinguishable from its parts, while still beingfundamentally nothing more than its parts."* than does David (below) in first questioning your 'fundamentally' if it means a view of the inventory of material parts only? IMO a system is more than a bunch of parts shoveled together, it develops interactions, associations (relations, for sure) and a cumulative view of them as a potential UNIT. Whether we detect it (emergence?) or not. I differentiate such *'system'* from the - well, looking for a word - say: organism, relational association in the* infinite complexity* *"WORLD"* (or nature, existence, etc.) as being *restricted* only to components (parts?) we KNOW ABOUT. In my *agnostic knowledge* (sic) I presume a lot of unknowable factors also acting with the few we 'know' about in causing(?) changes we may (partially?) observe. On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 9:10 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 17 October 2014 09:38, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 16 October 2014 19:54, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> 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. > > > > > > That doesn't strike me as a good example. I presume both you and he would > > agree that there's simply no need to posit "something" (elan vital?) over > > and above its physical basis in order to have a satisfactory intuition > about > > what is meant by life. There's nothing obviously counter-intuitive about > the > > idea that life demands no explanation beyond the particular physical > > processes that constitute living systems. On the other hand I presume you > > don't find the parallel intuition - that consciousness demands no > > explanation beyond its correlation with specific physical processes - > > similarly satisfactory. Am I wrong? > > Whether I find it satisfactory or not is a different question. The point I > was making is that people who find it satisfactory express this belief > idea by claiming that consciousness does not exist. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > -- > 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.
