> On 5 Jun 2018, at 23:26, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 6/5/2018 7:42 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> On 4 June 2018 at 23:48, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> On 6/4/2018 7:13 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> I am very grateful for mother medicine, but >>> we should not pretend that its operative assumptions solve the >>> fundamental questions. >>> >>> What fundamental question do you refer to? How to detect consciousness? >>> How to produce consciousness? How to prove (in the empirical sense) that >>> consciousness is linked to brain activity? That's my concern, that one just >>> throws up things that are syntactically questions but with no thought as to >>> what might constitute an answer. >>> >>> I understand your concern. I will just tell you what my main curiosities >>> are: >>> >>> >>> OK, I'll take a stab at them. >>> >>> >>> - Why does consciousness even exist? Darwinism does not seem to require it. >>> >>> >>> It's a necessary feature of intelligence. Intelligence requires "what-if" >>> modeling of situations in order to foresee consequences. Even a the lower >>> animal level this implies modeling oneself in the simulation. In higher, >>> social animals it includes being able to put yourself in the place of others >>> in order to anticipate their repsonses, i.e. having a theory of mind. >> Yes, but why are the "lights on" inside me? Why are we not mechanisms, >> that do exactly what you describe, but without a first-person >> experience of it? > > Ah, there's your problem. Science doesn't answer "why" questions.
Why? That is again a prejudice, which the authorianist religious people like very much, as it means that science, by definition, will let the “why” in the hand of the manipulators that they are. > That's what I mean by people having an exaggerated idea of what science does. > Newton said, "Hypothesi non fingo."...but nobody speaks latin anymore. People might have an exaggerated idea of what Natural Science does, perhaps. And might not have the imagination to conceive what science can do, when freed from the metaphysical prejudices. Mechanism illustrate a science giving the why, and the how. Not all the why, but most of it. > >> >>> - What is the relationship between consciousness and matter? >>> >>> Consciousness, as explained above, is the ability to perceive and act >>> intelligently in the world by doing "what-if" simulations to foresee events. >>> It is something that is instantiated by complex material systems that >>> include memory and information processing; but we don't know exactly what >>> kind. >> You switched to intelligence. AI is fairly advanced now, it does not >> seem to require consciousness to do the things it describe. Perhaps it >> is conscious as a side-effect, but why? > > See above, i.e. because it is necessary. Science may well determine when and > where and what relations there are. But not why. That's the "engineering" > solution to the hard problem of consciousness for which I am often criticized. Because you limit science. Like the modern Muslim (since Al Ghazali) and christians (since the Roman Empire) , you want to separate religion from science. This lead to obscurantism and authorianism, as the video on the decline of science in islam illustrates well. It is the separation of science and religion which leads to obedience to texts at the place of reason and reflexion in the field. That prevents progress in both science and religion. Bruno > >> >>> - Is there a reality that is external to conscious perception? >>> >>> >>> It is a theory I have held a long time and it seems very well supported in >>> my experience. So I'm thinking that you exist and will read this. >> I am not proposing solipsism. My question is: is there a reality that >> is external to *any* conscious perception? I don't see any evidence >> one way or the other, just models that help calculate things. > > The problem with that is you stuck in "just". Don't deprecated good models. > >> >>> My view is scientifically speaking we never know anything "fundamental" and >>> the search for it is like the hunting of the snark. We seek theories with >>> more scope and more accuracy, but being "more fundamental" doesn't entail >>> that something is most fundamental. Mystics like Bruno postulate something >>> and then build structures on it which, by some (often small) agreement with >>> experience, PROVE their postulates. But as Feynman used to point out, this >>> is Greek mathematics. Science is like Persian mathematics in which the >>> mathematician seeks to identify all the possible axiom sets that entail the >>> observations. >>> >>> I tend to agree that scientifically we never know anything >>> fundamental. I do believe that it is possible to use reason to acquire >>> knowledge by means that are not the scientific method. I am certain >>> that I possess knowledge that was not acquired by scientific means, >>> for example I know how it feels to be me. >>> >>> >>> It ain't so much what you don't know that gets you into trouble, as what you >>> know that ain't so. >>> --- Josh Billings >> Indeed. >> >>> Even if my metaphysical >>> obsessions are a fool's errand, I do think it is valuable to know >>> where the boundaries of scientific knowledge are, and be humble enough >>> to recognize them. >>> >>> >>> I think it is scientists who are most aware of the boundaries of scientific >>> knowledge. Non-scientists tend to look at technology and think, "Oh we can >>> make airplanes so we know all about flying." Scientists know that there's >>> no proof that the Navier-Stokes equations will converge to a solution for a >>> particular case. That doesn't however mean that the boundary is fixed and >>> can't be pushed back. So when scientists propose to study consciousness, >>> non-scientists think, "Oh they want to explain it like Newton explained >>> gravity and Maxwell explained radio waves. Put it in mathematical formulae. >>> That's impossible. I have consciousness and I know it's not mathematical (I >>> can't even do math)." Scientists are thinking, "We'll make an approximate >>> but limited model of consciousness, like Newton did of gravity, so we'll be >>> able to predict some phenomena of consciousness, like Maxwell did for EM." >> Well but you know my objections, namely with the instrumentation issue. >> >>> I feel that a lot of resistance to this stuff comes from a fear that >>> one is trying to slide religion or the supernatural through the back >>> door, so to speak. I trust that you believe that I am not trying to >>> sell anything like that. I only proclaim my ignorance, and the >>> ignorance of everyone else. >>> >>> >>> Just like a lot of resistance to materialism comes from people who want an >>> immortal soul. >> I have no doubt that there is a lot of that. These people lack >> imagination. The immortal soul, especially under many-mind >> assumptions, is a truly terrifying idea. > > It's not very nice under many-worlds either. > > Brent > > -- > 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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