On 5/08/2016 3:41 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 04 Aug 2016, at 04:37, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 4/08/2016 1:04 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Aug 2016, at 07:16, Bruce Kellett wrote:
You use the assumption that the duplicated consciousnesses
automatically differentiate when receiving different inputs.
It is not an assumption.
Of course it is an assumption. You have not derived it from anything
previously in evidence.
See my answer to Brent. It is just obvious that the first person
experience differentiated when it get different experience, leading to
different memories. We *assume* computationalism. How coud the diaries
not differentiate? What you say does not make any sense.
I have been at pains to argue (in several different ways) that the
differentiation of consciousness is not automatic. It is very easy to
conceive of a situation in which a single consciousness continues in two
bodies, with the streams of consciousness arising from both easily
identifiable, but still unified in the consciousness of a single person.
(I copy below my recent argument for this in a post replying to
Russell.) So the differentiation you require is not necessary or
automatic -- it has to be justified separately because it is not "just
obvious".
Your recent expansion of the argument of step 3 in discussions with John
Clark does not alter the situation in any way -- you still just assert
that the differentiation takes place on the receipt of different input data.
I had thought that the argument for such differentiation of
consciousness in different physical bodies was a consequence of some
mind-brain identity thesis. But I am no longer sure that even that is
sufficient -- the differentiation clearly requires separate
bodies/brains (separate input data streams), but separate bodies are not
sufficient for differentiation, as I have shown. What is required is a
much stronger additional assumption, namely an association between minds
and brains such that a mind can occupy only one brain. (Whether a single
brain can host only one mind is a separate matter, involving one's
attitude to the results of split brain studies and the psychological
issues surrounding multiple personalities/minds.) In other words, the
differentiation assumption is an additional assumption that does not
appear to follow from either physicalism or YD+CT.
As I have further pointed out, one cannot just make this an additional
assumption to YD+CT because it is clearly an empirical matter: until we
have a working person duplicator, we cannot know whether differentiation
is automatic or not. Science is, after all, empirical, not just a matter
of definitions.
Bruce
Here is part of my discussion with Russell:
[BK]I could perhaps expand on that response. On duplication, two
identical consciousnesses are created, and by the identity of
indiscernibles, they form just a single consciousness. Then data is
input. It seems to me that there is no reason why this should lead the
initial consciousness to differentiate, or split into two. In normal
life we get inputs from many sources simultaneously -- we see complex
scenes, smell the air, feel impacts on our body, and hear many sounds
from the environment. None of this leads our consciousness to
disintegrate. Indeed, our evolutionary experience has made us adept at
coping with these multifarious inputs and sorting through them very
efficiently to concentrate on what is most important, while keeping
other inputs at an appropriate level in our minds.
[BK]I have previously mentioned our ability to multitask in complex
ways: while I am driving my car, I am aware of the car, the road, other
traffic and so on; while, at the same time, I can be talking to my wife;
thinking about what to cook for dinner; and reflecting on philosophical
issues that are important to me. And this is by no means an exhaustive
list of our ability to multitask -- to run many separate conscious
modules within the one unified consciousness.
[BK]Given that this experience is common to us all, it is not in the
least bit difficult to think that the adding of yet another stream of
inputs via a separate body will not change the basic structure of our
consciousness -- we will just take this additional data and process in
the way we already process multiple data inputs and streams of
consciousness. This would seem, indeed, to be the default understanding
of the consequences of person duplication. One would have to add some
further constraints in order for it to be clear that the separate bodies
would necessarily have differentiated conscious streams. No such
additional constraints are currently in evidence.
PS. Please keep your personal comments and insults to yourself.
You are inventing this. Step 3 does not use step 7. Please follows the
thread or avoid trolling the discussion. Read my exchange with Clark,
I just give him a new proof of the FPI.
Bruce, I have to say that you look more and more like the guys who
decide something is crackpot before studying it, as your remark have
just no relationship with the reasoning proposed, and then you confess
you don't read the post, nor the papers, nor the books I have
suggested, etc.
I have just proved again, in anew way, the FPI, so read the proof, and
let us move to step 4, unless you have a genuine point against step 3.
But it does not use step 7, that is pure invention, or total
misunderstanding, or total non reading and just repeating parrots
which repeat parrots, etc.
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