First remark: I do not equate 'compute' with 'calculate math.-ly', but from the Latin origin: "put together thoughts (whatever putare refers to)". Second remark: amoeba is SSOOO different from a 'human' that in human terms it sounds "strange" to imagine how/what it feels/thinks.
Supporting idea: 1. according to my (agnostic) belief the WORLD (call it Nature, or call it whatever you like) is an infinite complexity of the Entirety and we have but a tiny proportional access to some segments of it. AND - to try to explain our entire existence (let me call it instead of our "objective human reality" our human subjective composite) --- math-related terms would simplify the task into one plane (numbers) instead of applying the unlimited 'planes' (connections) of the infinite complexity of Everything we cannot even fathom. 2. the complexity-levels of an amoeba and a human (mind? I don't know about 'soul' mentioned here) are so vastly different that no straight comparison seems realistic. John Mikes On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 8:11 AM, Pierz <[email protected]> wrote: > I disagree with most of the theorising about this scenario, which seems to > me to be coming from a much too theoretical place. Humans may or may not be > computational at base, but we are not PCs. We are not blank slates, waiting > for an operating system to be installed. Our brains and bodies imply an > environment and a developmental trajectory in which social interaction and > emotional nurture play a critical role. (Consider the famous "wire mother" > experiments performed on rhesus monkeys: > http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm) A person raised > like a brain in a vat, "sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything", is not an > amoeba, but a torture victim. Certainly they would fail to develop into > something we would recognize as a person, but they would not and could not > "fail to become a person", because personhood is not a function of the > development of specific physical or cognitive capabilities. People with > locked-in syndrome are also often not recognised as persons because they > cannot communicate their personhood. My own suspicion with regards to this > scenario is that the victim would die, as people sometimes do who are > deprived of all hope. Physical health is not merely a product of the input > of certain nutrients, the removal of wastes and so on. Like development > itself, it is a function of a relationship between a body and an > environment to which that body, mind and soul are adapted. That is the > meaning of being an organism, and it's why the computational metaphor sits > badly with me sometimes (I don't agree with much of what Craig Weinberg > used to say, but I suspect we're aligned on that point). If we're > computers, it is only in the most abstract sense, but the metaphor tends to > extend itself, as metaphors do. The infant "expects" a mother, without > being able to name that expectation. It expects a lot more too - to put it > simply, it expects a *world. *In some sense, it *is* that world, having > evolved over billions of years as a response to it. This makes the > "experiment" extremely artificial - as a philosopher of mind we might be > tempted to think of the subject as a kind of computational tabula rasa, as > Bruno appears to do. But in truth he or she is much more like the most > extreme form of amputee. > > > > > On Monday, September 21, 2015 at 10:55:55 PM UTC+10, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> Hi Brian, Telmo and others, >> >> On 21 Sep 2015, at 02:49, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> Hi Brian, >> >> That's an interesting question. My take is this: I think trying to >> understand that experience is like trying to understand what it feels like >> to be an amoeba. It's just too alien. >> >> >> I am not sure. I can imagine an amoeba having "proto-feeling" comparable >> to ours. An amoeba or a paramecium might feel something like some urge to >> find food when hungry, some urge to find a mate, some urge to build a kist >> due to pollution, ... A monocellular eukaryotic organism is a cell playing >> the roles of liver cells, digestive cells, skin cells, neuronal cells, >> muscular cells, etc. In the case of paramecium, this is more or less >> confirmed by the molecular structure of the cells, in which key molecules >> playing the corresponding role of each organ can be found. In particular we >> can anesthetize a paramecium, we can block its locomotion with inhibiters >> similar to what can inhibit our muscles, etc. >> (Note that muscular and neuronal key molecules of that type have been >> found at the base of the roots of plants too, and we can indeed anesthetize >> plants). >> The only difficulty for us to imagine what is like to be an amoeba might >> comes when it divides itself, but then in this list this should no more be >> a problem (except for Clark and Peck I guess). >> >> But this does not solve Brian's difficult question. A human totally >> deprived of an environment would be more like an encysted amoeba, never >> going out of its "egg" (cyst), I think its consciousness might be similar >> to the consciousness of the virgin machine (the non programmed computer), >> which I think is similar to the consciousness we can have during some phase >> of sleep or with some drug (notably salvia). That is a consciousness state >> that we can hardly conceive, because it is not time-related, nor >> space-related. To imagine it, some thought experience can be given, but >> they will have to contain "total amnesia", and even this will just be a >> sort of approximation. In fact such a state of consciousness, even when >> lived, are not strictly speaking memorable. If some theories are correct, >> the feeling can be like an "home feeling". It looks like some people >> getting at that state describe it as the usual, normal consciousness when >> in absence of any hallucination: it is being like "you" before you begin >> any differentiation. Even among those who describe it as "home", some are >> quite positive about it (like bliss) and some are negative about it.. Note >> that people doing deprivation of input experience in talk deprivation, are >> actually trying to get closer to such state (and some claims to have found >> it in that way). >> >> Now, it is only recently (well since 2008) that I think that all >> universal machine are maximally conscious, and why that sort of "blank >> state", when given information/input, is somehow distracted, and will >> confuse that "out-of-time" consciousness with its growing content. If such >> state was too much easily accessible, we would get in there when we have >> problem, instead of solving the problem, and probably accept equally to eat >> and to be eaten, which is a good state at the end of life, but handicapping >> when young where we are supposed to take life, and its information flux, >> very seriously. We forget quickly our nocturnal dreams for probable similar >> reason. >> >> >> >> >> >> We have some clues. For example, it is known that if children don't learn >> a language until a certain age, they become incapable of learning a >> language forever. There are some instances of this, with children being >> raised by animals in the wild. >> >> I believe we depend on a lot of information that is encoded in the >> environment to become human. What you describe would be a life form, but >> not human as we understand it. A developing brain is capable of growing >> into what we understand to be a human brain, but not by itself. >> >> >> "Humanness" is encoded in the environment, it transcends single bodies or >> what DNA can encode by itself. >> >> >> I agree with this and what the others said. If you are never feed any >> input, you are in the state that "you" had before birth, and with some >> luck, after clinical death (when you don't backtrack on different >> continuations, if that is possible, as plant and experience reports suggest >> to be possible). It is not a human state of mind. >> >> To be honest, I have done a simplification here, as a fetus *might* have >> preprogrammed human experiences and skills. Babies seem to be able to swim >> and walk immediately after birth (like horse), but quickly forget those >> skills (and perhaps associated experience) to learn them again through the >> try and error typical way for baby to learn (unlike horse who will just >> walk instinctively). So, a real human born in a deprivation tank might have >> some experience, due to the fact that it has some brain, will get food, >> etc. he will have the sleep phases, and might dream that he is hungry for >> example. I doubt that he will be able to imagine colors and shapes, though. >> (To be sure I read that some people born blind did saw color when taking >> some drugs, which is not so hard to conceive, as color might be partially >> preprogrammed in the brain too). But the reports might be fake, and that >> might be circumstantial, and my answer is on the principle, not in >> practice, where such an experience would be ... inhuman to do. >> >> Best, >> >> Bruno >> >> *We are not human beings having from time to time divine experiences. We >> are divine beings having from time to time human experiences (de Chardin).* >> >> >> >> >> Telmo. >> >> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 1:21 AM, Brian Tenneson <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> I wonder what would happen to someone's mind if they were born in a >>> white (or any color) isolation tank. What would happen as years wore on? >>> Would the person ever hallucinate anything? It has only seen the tank for >>> his whole life. So what would inspire him to hallucinate something? Can he >>> hallucinate, say, a friend staring at him from across the void without ever >>> seeing a friend or anything for that matter except the white isolation >>> tank. Would he dream and what would he dream of? Would dreaming become >>> one with waking? Would he even know what a dream is? He has never heard the >>> word "dream" spoken out loud. But he knows which worlds decay faster or are >>> more "curvy" in the world-line sense: dreams decay faster or are more >>> "curvy" than waking events. So, locally, we usually know when it's a dream. >>> When the event world-line is straight, that means we pretty much never know >>> what is a dream and what is "real"? >>> >>> -- >>> 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. >>> >> >> >> -- >> 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. >> >> >> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ >> >> >> >> -- > 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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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