Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 12 May 2015, at 8:25 am, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
It won't be a specific electron that will switch consciousness off
regardless of the order in which you remove parts, as you seem to be
implying here, but rather, in a specific sequence of removal of parts,
there will be one part that when removed causes the switching off.
The final straw would have to be indivisible, otherwise you could make a
partial zombie by replacing half the straw.
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.
That seems to be the case in the real world. As brain tissue is
destroyed, by injury or disease, specific functionality is lost
according to the brain area destroyed, but there is not a fading of
consciousness until quite late in this process. Alzheimer's patients can
be perfectly conscious although totally gaga.
Of course, consciousness is also lost if there is whole-of-brain trauma,
such as is induced by a very sharp blow on the head. These two
observations are not in conflict.
Bruce
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