On 8/1/2016 12:56 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 1 August 2016 at 17:04, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au <mailto:bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>> wrote:I do not think that any "spooky action at a distance" is necessary. To think that it is necessary for one consciousness to inhabit two distinct bodies is to make a physicalist assumption -- namely, to identify consciousness with the activity and content of a single brain. If we drop that assumption, consciousness, /per se/, is not tied to a single location -- it could be in several places (or times) at once without the need for any physical connection (that is what non-locality is all about).A duplicate of my brain with the same inputs would, under the physicalist assumption, have the same experiences. That would mean that I could not say which brain my consciousness was linked to; if one brain were destroyed, my experience would continue uninterrupted. On the contrary, it would require a non-physicalist theory of some sort if the consciouness of two identical brains could be distinguished.
But "identical" means having the same inputs. So you're agreeing with Bruce that if duplicated brains getting different inputs (because they are in physically different locations) have the same experiences, i.e. they both experience perceptions related to the two locations, then they are instantiating only one consciousness. If one were destroyed, the single consciousness might continue without the perceptions of the other (like closing one eye) or it might experience some other diminution. That's the empirical question.
Personally, I suspect something like Dennett's multiple drafts is right model. Already in you brain there are modules dealing with different perceptions, as in Bruce's example of driving. He is conscious of the traffic and road and the car, but at a different level than musing over philosophical problem at the same time, and he may also be listening to the radio via another module. What we call "conscious thoughts" are just the winners among these modules who are competing to be the ones that enter the memory narrative; the answer to the question, "What did you think about while driving home, dear?"
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