On 5/18/2015 1:50 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Tuesday, May 19, 2015, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 5/18/2015 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
What about Mister D. During his conference his brain completely melted down,
disappeared, say, in this thought experience, but a lucky cosmic ray, by
pure
chance, will activate the exact motor's neurons, so that he will pursue his
conference like if nothing happened. Once, an auditor interrupted him and
asked a
question, but Mister D was so lucky that at that moment the lucky ray sent,
by pure
chance, the "right" activation of the motor nerves. Note that Mister D as no
inputs, no cortex, no lymbic system, no cerebral stem, as the lucky rays
activates
only the motor nerves.
Is him a zombie? In this case the empty brain is as good as a normal brain.
For the
right 3p behavior, you need just the right impulse at the muscles.
What if the brain does not melt down, but get dissociated and manages a
dream,
unrelated to the conference. Who would be Mister D from his (?) perspective?
It strikes me that these arguments based on extreme improbabilities are worthless.
What difference would it make whether Mister D is conscious or not in a hypothetical
that is so improbable as to never happen in the history of the universe?
We could
accept either answer. It's like reasoning, "If pigs could fly, then..."
There is a difference in kind, not degree, between the impossible and the highly
improbable.
I disagree. That's a platonic attitude that we can discriminate between impossible and
highly improbable. It comes from a reliance on logical, in which contradictions are
"impossible"; but in fact contradictions are properties of language and what we have
thought "impossible" in the past based on language, we've found to be the case in fact and
had to adjust our language to fit.
Brent
In ordinary life we can take them as equivalent, and do so multiple times a day without
thinking about it, but not in philosophical discussions such as these.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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