On Monday, March 9, 2015, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 3/8/2015 9:37 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > On Monday, March 9, 2015, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 3/8/2015 3:34 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> >> >> On Monday, March 9, 2015, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 3/8/2015 1:26 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> >>>> On 8 March 2015 at 09:33, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I like Graziano's theory of consciousness. >>>>> >>>>> http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-consciousness-works/ >>>>> >>>>> I have generally been inclined to agree with JKC that natural selection >>>>> can't act on consciousness, only on intelligence; so consciousness is >>>>> either >>>>> a necessary byproduct of intelligence or it's a spandrel. But under >>>>> Graziano's theory it's a way of augmenting or improving intelligence >>>>> within >>>>> constraints of limited computational resources. So it would be >>>>> subject to >>>>> natural selection. It also shows how to make intelligence machines >>>>> without >>>>> consciousness (albeit less efficient ones). >>>>> >>>> Graziano equates consciousness with a model of the brain's state of >>>> attention, but why couldn't this be done by an unconscious machine? >>>> >>> >>> Because doing it makes the machine conscious. >> >> >> It might, but as presented it's begging he question. >> >> >> It proposes an architecture for computation that would realize >> consciousness. It's something that, in principle at least, could be >> constructed and one could interact with it and determine whether it seemed >> as conscious as you or I. What would you consider a non-question begging >> theory? >> > > A proof that that kind of architecture necessarily realises > consciousness. > > > What kind of proof? Science doesn't provide proof - except maybe in the > legal sense of "beyond reasonable doubt" which my proposed test does > provide. Mathematical proof depends on some axioms which one hypothetically > assumes for purposes of the argument. Mathematical inference ensures that > the conclusions are implicit in the axioms - so any axioms that prove > something about consciousness necessarily include the conclusion and so beg > the question. >
Well, I think the argument I have presented before (due to Chalmers) proves that if consciousness is due to activity in the brain, making a substitution that preserves brain function will necessarily also preserve consciousness. If not, then the idea of consciousness becomes absurd. -- 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.
