On Thu, 22 Mar 2018 at 5:45 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On 3/20/2018 11:29 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 at 9:03 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> On 3/20/2018 1:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> >> On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 at 6:34 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On 3/20/2018 3:58 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> The interesting thing is that you can draw conclusions about consciousness >>> without being able to define it or detect it. >>> >>> I agree. >>> >>> >>> The claim is that IF an entity >>> is conscious THEN its consciousness will be preserved if brain function is >>> preserved despite changing the brain substrate. >>> >>> Ok, this is computationalism. I also bet on computationalism, but I >>> think we must proceed with caution and not forget that we are just >>> assuming this to be true. Your thought experiment is convincing but is >>> not a proof. You do expose something that I agree with: that >>> non-computationalism sounds silly. >>> >>> But does it sound so silly if we propose substituting a completely >>> different kind of computer, e.g. von Neumann architecture or one that just >>> records everything instead of an episodic associative memory, for the >>> brain. The Church-Turing conjecture says it can compute the same >>> functions. But does it instantiate the same consciousness. My intuition >>> is that it would be "conscious" but in some different way; for example by >>> having the kind of memory you would have if you could review of a movie of >>> any interval in your past. >>> >> >> I think it would be conscious in the same way if you replaced neural >> tissue with a black box that interacted with the surrounding tissue in the >> same way. It doesn’t matter what is in the black box; it could even work by >> magic. >> >> >> Then why draw the line at "surrounding tissue". Why not the external >> enivironment? >> > > Keep expanding the part that is replaced and you replace the whole brain > and the whole organism. > > Are you saying you can't imagine being "conscious" but in a different way? >> > > I think it is possible but I don’t think it could happen if my neurones > were replaced by a functionally equivalent component. If it’s functionally > equivalent, my behaviour would be unchanged, > > > I agree with that. But you've already supposed that functional > equivalence at the behavior level implies preservation of consciousness. > So what I'm considering is replacements in the brain far above the neuron > level, say at the level of whole functional groups of the brain, e.g. the > visual system, the auditory system, the memory,... Would functional > equivalence at the body/brain interface then still imply consciousness > equivalence? > I think it would, because I don’t think there are isolated consciousness modules in the brain. A large enough change in visual experience will be noticed by the subject, who will report that things look different. This could only happen if there is a change in the input to the language system from the visual system; but we have assumed that the output from the visual system is the same, and only the consciousness has changed, leading to a contradiction. > -- 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.
