meekerdb wrote:
On 5/11/2015 11:14 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
[BM] Why? Have you proven that consciousness supervenes on a record?
Have you proven that it does not?
No, but I have a lot of evidence it supervenes on brain /*processes*/.
Reducing that to /*states*/ is a further assumption.
That is the pedant's reply. :-)
A process reduces to a sequence of states -- you simply lower the
substitution level (step rate) to whatever value is necessary to
reproduce the process FAPP.
The assumption of the argument was that consciousness supervenes on
the brain state.
That's not the same as saying yes to the doctor. It's your added
interpretation that consciousness supervenes on a brain state as opposed
to a brain process that constitutes a computation. Bruno, who made the
argument, I think is relying on the latter.
Yes, that seems to be the case. The original claim of absurdity for the
idea that consciousness could supervene on a recording has been replaced
by the claim that the recording is not a computation of the required
kind. This also begs the question of course -- where is it proved that
that particular type of computation is both necessary and sufficient for
consciousness?
However, I think one can approach this in a different way. The
overwhelming evidence from neuroscience, and all related
experimentation, is that consciousness supervenes on the physical brain
-- the goo in our skulls. Damage the goo, stimulate the goo, do anything
to the goo, and our qualia or consciousness are altered. Alter our
consciousness/thinking/processing and there are associated changes in
the brain activity/states. (Pet scans and the like.)
The MGA argues that the natural sequence of brain states and a recording
of that sequence are not equivalent in that one is conscious and the
other is not. It is concluded from this that consciousness does not
supervene on the brain states/processes, which conclusion is
contradicted by the overwhelming bulk of experimental evidence.
This is science. When your theory is contradicted by overwhelming
experimental evidence, it is conventionally taken as evidence that your
theory has been falsified. The MGA puts Bruno's theory in this category:
it has been falsified by the experimental results.
Bruce
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