> On 21 Mar 2018, at 01:35, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 7:27 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > >You don't need an instrument that can give a clean yes/no answer to the > presence of consciousness to develop scientific theories about consciousness. > We can start with the observation that all normal healthy humans are > conscious, and that rocks and other inert objects are not conscious and work > from there to develop a science of consciousness, based on evidence from the > observation of behaviour. > > But if it was all based on the observation of behavior then what you'd end up > with is a scientific theory about intelligence not consciousness.
That is right. But if you agree that consciousness is a form of non-provable but also non-doubtable knowledge, and if you agree with the standard definition of knowledge in philosophy of mind, then it is a theorem that Peano Arithmetic is conscious. To believe that Robinson Arithmetic is conscious too (plausibly even more) is more tricky. Bruce is right that consciousness will be a global thing, as we can get from the first person indeterminacy too, but that does not mean that consciousness is not preserved by functional digital substitution made at some level. Bruno > > John K Clark > > > > > -- > 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] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- 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.
