On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 at 10:56 am, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > > On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 at 10:09 am, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> If the theory is that if the observable behaviour of the brain is >> replicated, then consciousness will also be replicated, then the clear >> corollary is that consciousness can be inferred from observable behaviour. >> Which implies that I can be as certain of the consciousness of other people >> as I am of my own. This seems to do some violence to the 1p/1pp/3p >> distinctions that computationalism rely on so much: only 1p is "certainly >> certain". But if I can reliably infer consciousness in others, then other >> things can be as certain as 1p experiences.... >> > > You can’t reliable infer consciousness in others. What you can infer is > that whatever consciousness an entity has, it will be preserved if > functionally identical substitutions in its brain are made. > > > You have that backwards. You can infer consciousness in others, by > observing their behaviour. The alternative would be solipsism. Now, while > you can't prove or disprove solipsism in a mathematical sense, you can > reject solipsism as a useless theory, since it tells you nothing about > anything. Whereas science acts on the available evidence -- observations of > behaviour in this case. > > But we have no evidence that consciousness would be preserved under > functionally identical substitutions in the brain. Consciousness may be a > global affair, so functionally equivalence may not be achievable, or even > definable, within the context of a conscious brain. Can you map the > functionality of even a single neuron? You are assuming that you can, but > if that function is global, then you probably can't. There is a fair amount > of glibness in your assumption that consciousness will be preserved under > such substitutions. > > > > You can’t know if a mouse is conscious, but you can know that if mouse > neurones are replaced with functionally identical electronic neurones its > behaviour will be the same and any consciousness it may have will also be > the same. > > > You cannot know this without actually doing the substitution and observing > the results. > So do you think that it is possible to replace the neurones with functionally identical neurones (same output for same input) and the mouse’s behaviour would *not* be the same? -- 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.
