I think this is specious. Even humans who, as in sensory deprivation > tanks, have no interaction with their environment tend to "lose > consciousness" in the sense of going into though loops. If a brain were > truly, completely isolated from it's environment I think it very doubtful > that it could remain conscious. And if, like David in the block, had never > experienced an environment it would be hard to say what he could be > conscious OF. The computation in our brains takes it's "meaning" from our > interactions with the world. >
When we are dreaming we are not aware of the external environment. On 30th April 2017 Brent Meeker wrote: That's not true in the broad sense of "aware". Most people will awake instantly if you whisper their name. Dreams often include bits of the environment: the room is cold, there are noises outside,... But my point was more general than that. If you had never experienced the external world, like a newborn infant, your brain would have to learn to conceptualize and your thoughts would take their meaning from the external world and your interaction with it. This is approximately what happens; although a new born is actually given a head start by evolution providing some hardwired concepts. Notice that on Bruno's theory the newborn should already know logic and arithmetic - they are independent of the external (physical) world. In any case, the effect of sensory deprivation on humans is a contingent fact about human psychology, and I don't think it implies anything about the nature of consciousness in general. I think it does. It's a bit of evidence supporting the theory that consciousness evolved as part of intelligence in dealing with the external world and any intelligent behaving being will be conscious - i.e. will be able to predict and plan using internal simulations in which the being itself is represented. So consciousness will always be about something. The question of where computations in our brains get their meaning from is interesting. As we develop, certain brain patterns come to be associated with certain patterns in the environment, and hence acquire meaning. The brain pattern and associated meaning can later be summoned in the absence of the environmental stimulus, as in a thought or a dream. But if the same brain with the same brain patterns were created de novo, say with an advanced 3D printer, would the meaning be absent? I find it difficult to imagine how that could be the case. It depends on the relation of the brain pattern to the environmental stimulus. "Created de novo" might mean occuring at random with no relation to the referent except accident. If you think that produces consciousness of the referent then you are led to the paradox of the rock that thinks everything. That's why I think there must be an interactive relation between consciousness and its referent. Bruno denies this when he adopt Theaetatus's definition of knowledge as true-belief. He reject Gettier's requirement that to be knowledge there must be a causitive relation between the belief and the thing believed - so just guessing correctly doesn't count as knowledge. > The idea that computationalism implies that consciousness would occur > independently of physical activity has been used as an argument against > computationalism, on the grounds that it is self-evidently absurd. Hilary > Putnam, originator of functionalism (of which computationalism is a > subset), later realised this implication and changed his mind. John Searle > and Tim Maudlin came to a similar conclusion. > > But an alternative is, as Bruno suggests, to keep computationalism and > accept that the apparent physical world is secondary, not primary. The > physical computers sold by Dell or IBM, along with everything else, are > made in a virtual reality running on a Platonic computer. While this may at > first glance seem absurd, there is no reason I can think of why it cannot > be true. And it has advantages in addition to preserving computationalism, > such as eliminating the need to explain why there should be a physical > universe at all. > > > But it doesn't eliminate the need to explain why there should be a > physical universe - rather it speculates that the UD will necessarily > produce not only thread of consciouness but also a physics for > consciousness to relate to. But that's why I thing the "reversal" is a > cheat. The physics is necessary to the consciousness - whatever is > "primary". > Mathematics is ontologically necessary: God is not needed to create the number 2 and can't get rid of the number 2 even if he is omnipotent. Primary physical existence lacks this quality of ontological necessity. That's like saying conjunction is ontologically necessary: God is not needed to create "and". On 1 May 2017 at 04:25, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: It depends on the relation of the brain pattern to the environmental > stimulus. "Created de novo" might mean occuring at random with no relation > to the referent except accident. If you think that produces consciousness > of the referent then you are led to the paradox of the rock that thinks > everything. That's why I think there must be an interactive relation > between consciousness and its referent. Bruno denies this when he adopt > Theaetatus's definition of knowledge as true-belief. He reject Gettier's > requirement that to be knowledge there must be a causitive relation between > the belief and the thing believed - so just guessing correctly doesn't > count as knowledge. > I can't think of a mechanism whereby two identical brains, one created by accident and one in the normal way with experiences of the real world, could differ in consciousness. > >> The idea that computationalism implies that consciousness would occur >> independently of physical activity has been used as an argument against >> computationalism, on the grounds that it is self-evidently absurd. Hilary >> Putnam, originator of functionalism (of which computationalism is a >> subset), later realised this implication and changed his mind. John Searle >> and Tim Maudlin came to a similar conclusion. >> >> But an alternative is, as Bruno suggests, to keep computationalism and >> accept that the apparent physical world is secondary, not primary. The >> physical computers sold by Dell or IBM, along with everything else, are >> made in a virtual reality running on a Platonic computer. While this may at >> first glance seem absurd, there is no reason I can think of why it cannot >> be true. And it has advantages in addition to preserving computationalism, >> such as eliminating the need to explain why there should be a physical >> universe at all. >> >> >> But it doesn't eliminate the need to explain why there should be a >> physical universe - rather it speculates that the UD will necessarily >> produce not only thread of consciouness but also a physics for >> consciousness to relate to. But that's why I thing the "reversal" is a >> cheat. The physics is necessary to the consciousness - whatever is >> "primary". >> > > Mathematics is ontologically necessary: God is not needed to create the > number 2 and can't get rid of the number 2 even if he is omnipotent. > Primary physical existence lacks this quality of ontological necessity. > > -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
