On 2/3/2015 9:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
Well the question "is something conscious?" is binary, like "is something alive?". However there is a great spectrum of possible living entities, and a massive gulf that separates the simplest life forms from the most complex life forms. I think the same is true of consciousness. The mars rover might be conscious, but its consciousness might be as simple as a bacterium's biology is compared to a human's.That seems inconsistent with being "binary", like "being alive". First, being alive isn't "binary". Are viruses alive? Prions? Cigarettes? Any of those things are either alive or they aren't (according to some theory of liveness).
So you simply define "alive" to be all or nothing by invoking some "theory of liveness" - however arbitrarily you have to draw the line. Not a very defensible position.
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