On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 10:23:31AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > The final straw would have to be indivisible, otherwise you could make a > partial zombie by replacing half the straw.
I disagree. The final straw either works, or does not work. If you replace half the straw, then the resulting half-straw either works or it doesn't, and that directly affects whether you have a conscious entity or not. No need to invoke a partial zombie. > > It would lead to a strange form of computationalism: you could replace say > 40% of the brain without any problem, but go to 40.00000001% and > consciousness gies off. > It's what happens in the real world all the time. One moment you have a whole working network - the next you have pieces. Consider dismantling an engine. 3 screws out, and the engine still idles. Take the 4th out, and the head falls off. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 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.
