Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
If we are not conscious, then our personalities, or personalities, similar to ourselves, would be childs play to create. All we need to do is copy the functions of the cerebrum, cerebellum, the amgdyla, and the medula oblongata, and hocus pocus, we'd have a working copy of David's mind. But we haven't and there must be a reason why? Obviously, the task is more daunting, and harder to achieve than first thought at the start of academic AI studies. What have we missed? If we are not conscious, then why post to the everything mailing list? Have we been programmed to do this? The NYT gets it wrong again, possibly out of the need for polemics. -----Original Message----- From: David Nyman <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Nov 9, 2014 06:58 PM Subject: Re: Are We Really Conscious? (NYT Article today) <div id="AOLMsgPart_2_172388ba-376e-43fe-91c1-326a6e6a3062"> <div class="aolReplacedBody"> <div dir="ltr"> <div class="aolmail_gmail_extra"> <div class="aolmail_gmail_quote"> On 9 November 2014 23:16, Stathis Papaioannou <span dir="ltr"><<a target="_blank" href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected]</a>></span> wrote: <div class="aolmail_gmail_quote"> <blockquote class="aolmail_gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> <div id="aolmail_:1ev" class="aolmail_a3s" style="overflow:hidden"> One could say that if the bill of materials includes the ingredients and laws governing the interactions between the ingredients, that's everything there is. If seemingly magical things, fairies and unicorns and conscious beings, come out of the mix that doesn't necessarily mean that the ontological assumptions are deficient, but it may mean (by elimination) that the beholder's cognitive capacity is limited. </div> </blockquote> AFAICT, the second sentence above stands in direct contradiction to the first. If Graziano *really means to say* that the bill of materials is restricted in the way you suggest - IOW, that it is truly "everything there is" - then he cannot consistently *additionally believe* in either beholders or their cognitive capacities. But that conclusion would of course be both absurd and is indeed directly contradicted by what he actually goes on to say. Therefore I am forced to conclude that he is simply being inconsistent in his supposed commitment to any such restricted bill of materials because it is obvious that he openly relies on an indefinite variety of supernumerary entities and relations that are neither entailed nor required by it. The only really *consistent* view, under Graziano's presumably physicalist assumptions, would be the elimination of all references to persons, beliefs, cognitive abilities or indeed anything over and above the (assumed) fundamental entities and relations of physics. Under his assumptions, nothing whatsoever over and above this fundamental bill of materials is presumed necessary to account for the indefinite evolution of any physical state of affairs, which (lest we forget) is "all there is". What then is the motivation to speak of persons, cognitive abilities or any other such physically redundant conceits? Things are presumed to evolve, in precisely the way they should, without the aid of any such supplementary notions, are they not? Graziano aim is to single out "consciousness" for special attention, but the uncomfortable fact is that this particular razor has a very much more radical scope. It carries on slicing until the very conceptual structures he seeks to spare, and on which he continues to rely, lie in tatters. But then, a conclusion as radical as *that* wouldn't leave him with very much more to say, would it? Even more problematically, it wouldn't leave *him* at all. David </div> </div> </div> <p></p> -- 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 <a target="_blank" href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected]</a>. To post to this group, send email to <a target="_blank" href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected]</a>. Visit this group at <a target="_blank" href="http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list";>http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list</a>. For more options, visit <a target="_blank" href="https://groups.google.com/d/optout";>https://groups.google.com/d/optout</a>. </div> </div> </div> -- 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.
