On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 1:20 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >> Evolution provides a perfectly comprehensible route to consciousness, > > > > > To the easy consciousness problem. You don't seem aware of the hard > problem, like called it. The reason the hard problem hasn't been solved is that nobody, least of all Chalmers, has been able to clearly state exactly what the hard problem is. What mystery about consciousness has Darwin and the assumption that the chain of "what caused that?" questions is not infinite failed to solve? > > > > > Matter almost certainly is fungible, Yes, any atom will do because one atom is like another, but you can't make a calculation without atoms. Like atoms wheat is fungible and generic, but that doesn't mean you can make bread without wheat. > > but there might be a problem with scaling a computer model for individual > neurons, or small groups of neurons, up to the size of the full brain. Enormous technological problems would need to be overcome for a full brain emulation, but it would entail no scientific or philosophical problems. Unlike faster than light spaceships no new laws of physics would be required. > > You know, all I say is that if you use evolution to explain consciousness, > then you already use mechanism Yes, and you use mechanism every time you decide to scratch your nose. > > > but then, and that is what I show, you need to pursue the evolution idea > up to the origin of the physical laws, No, if you're just interested in consciousness then you don't need to do that anymore than a good neurologists needs to be a master of string theory, he can treat molecules and probably even entire neurons as black boxes and work up from there. Neurons are made of molecules and molecules are made of atoms and atoms are made of protons and protons are (possibly) made of strings, and yes maybe strings are in some sense made of numbers. Maybe. But none of that matters, if you understand why some arrangements of neurons produce intelligent behavior and why other arrangements do not then you understand consciousness, or at least as well as you're ever going to. John K Clark > > -- 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.
