On 3/27/2018 2:26 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, 28 Mar 2018 at 7:27 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 3/27/2018 10:19 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:On Wed, 28 Mar 2018 at 1:50 am, Lawrence Crowell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 7:21:00 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: On 27 March 2018 at 09:35, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: On 3/26/2018 3:19 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:If you are not and never can be aware of it then in what sense is it consciousness?Depends on what you mean by "it". I can be aware of my consciousness, without being aware that it is different than it was before; just as I can be aware of my consciousness without knowing whether it is the same as yours, or the same as some robot. If I am given a brain implant to try out for a few days and I notice no difference with the implant (everything feels exactly the same if I switch it in or out of circuit), everyone I know agrees there is no change in me, and every test I do with the implant switched in or out of circuit yields the same results, then I think there would be no good reason to hesitate in saying yes to the implant. If the change it brings about is neither objectively nor subjectively obvious, it isn't a change.-- Stathis PapaioannouThis argument ignores scaling. With any network you can replace or change nodes and connections on a small scale and the system remains largely unchanged. At a certain critical number of such changes the properties of the entire network system can rapidly change. Yes, it is possible that this is the case. What this would mean is that that the observable behaviour of the system would stay unchanged as it is replaced from 0 to 100% and so would the consciousness for part of the way, but at a certain point, when a particular neurone is replaced, consciousness will suddenly flip on or off or change radically.I think you are overstating that and creating a strawman. Consciousness under the influence of drugs for example can change radically, but not "suddenly flip" with one more molecule of alcohol.If part of your consciousness changes as your brain is gradually replaced then you would notice but be aware noble to communicate it, which is what it scproblematic. One way out of this would be if your consciousness stayed the same up to a certain point then suddenly flipped. If you suddenly became a zombie you would not notice and not report that anything had changed, so no inconsistency. However, it’s a long stretch to say that consciousness will flip on changing a single molecule in order to save the idea that it is substrate specific.
But LC wasn't arguing it was substrate specific. He was arguing that its scale specific.
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