On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 1:33 AM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote: > On 15/06/2016 12:19 am, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 3:22 AM, Bruce Kellett >> >>> Assuming arithmetic does not even account for mind, much less account for >>> matter. Saying that consciousness is a computation is empty until one >>> specifies precisely what form of computation. >> >> It might be that all computations are conscious -- but with much >> different contents, of course. I feel some inclination towards this >> hypothesis. > > > But then you explain nothing. You have just made an identification > "computation = consciousness", which tells us nothing useful
Yes, my point here is that, in the worst case, you are no worse than you would be with physicalism in terms of explaining consciousness, but at least you are taking modern science seriously (the brain looks like a computer). As discusses in another post, I do think that Bruno's ideas (with the help of Gödel) provide an explanation to why consciousness looks like a mystery to us. >>> And why that form of >>> computation rather than some other? I don't see that computationalism >>> actually solves anything -- the problems it leaves unanswered are every >>> bit >>> as difficult as the problems one started with. >> >> But computationalism is the default position of modern science. The >> brain is a neural network, the neural network is equivalent to a >> Turing Machine and it is running a program, and this is what mind is >> somehow. Non-computationalism seems to require some form of duality, >> appeal to a soul and so on. > > > Have you never heard of supervenience? Consciousness is just a property of > matter in certain configurations and acting in certain ways. Such a position > does not deny that consciousness has some similarities to a computation, but > recognizes that it is a computation performed by a brain composed of matter. > There is no inherent duality. Yes, of course. I see 2 possibilities: 1) Matter is fungible, so it doesn't matter which atoms are performing the computation. In this case the same configuration can be repeated, and you get the same first-person indeterminacy that Bruno describes in the UDA; 2) There is some unknown property of matter that makes atoms (or whatever building block) non-fungible. What makes me me is partly the presence of a set of specific atoms (with invisible labels given by some unknown law of physics). 2) seems absurd given that, as far as we know, all the matter that makes up our body is eventually replaced several times throughout our lifetime. Perhaps there are exceptions in the skeleton, but all sorts of bones have been replaced by prosthetic ones with no apparent problem... So it seems that we are persistent phenomena along time, not specific chunks of matter. Telmo. > Bruce > > >> I don't find that computationalism was created to "solve anything". It >> is just the most obvious interpretation of a variety of empirical >> observations across fields: neuroscience, biology, chemistry, computer >> science. >> >>> At least with scientific >>> realism, one has the objective external world to underpin one's >>> experience: >>> i.e., one knows that it works, even if one is not quite sure how. >> >> Again, computationalism is the position of scientific realism. But >> Bruno's work (unless you mange to refute it) shows that >> computationalism is not compatible with the sort of objective external >> world that you like. So you have to choose one or the other. >> >> I do agree with you that, as far as I can tell, consciousness remains >> a mystery in Bruno's model. >> >> I can see how the UDA is uncomfortable to some people, but like with >> all science we can't choose, just check for correctness. >> >> Telmo. > > > -- > 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 https://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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
