On 10/16/2018 10:28 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 10:05 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
>> you know for a fact you're not conscious all the time, you
know you're not conscious when you're sleeping or under
anesthesia or before you were born and, although you don't
know for certain, you probably suspect you won't be conscious
after you're dead. And you may have also noticed a pattern
here, you seem to only be conscious when you have the ability
to behave intelligently.
> /"Having the ability to behave intelligently" is not something I
can know. /
I don't think very intelligently when I'm sleeping and I've known that
for as far back as I can remember. Are you any different?
You've never known it when you were sleeping, have you?
>> Structurally the difference between you and you're recently
deceased twin brother is at only one point, your unfortunate
sibling has a hole in his heart and you do not, but you're
still more similar to your twin than you are to me, and yet I
bet you believe I am more conscious than your brother because
one of us can still behave intelligently and one can't.
> /Really?? /
Yes really.
/> Ever heard of decay? /
Yes, that's why I said recently deceased.
One is not deceased until the metabolic pathways are starved of oxygen.
> /And why only "structure"? What happened to chemistry, neurons,
hormones,...?
/
Nothing happened to them because neurons and hormones also have
structure as do all complex objects, about the only things that don't
(as far as we know) are electrons, positrons, photons, neutrinos and
possibly quarks and Black Holes.
OK, and the change of those structures is what makes one deceased. So
one who is deceased is very different from one who is alive, even if
they are genetic identical.
/> I don't know what any of that has to do with my similarity to
other human beings providing evidence that they are conscious.
Octopuses act intelligently too, /
Yes.
/> but this bit of evidence in favor of their consciousness is
missing. /
The Genetic Code that the octopuses uses is not similar to the one you
use it is IDENTICAL to it, and both you and the octopus rely on the
same laws of organic chemistry.
The genetic code used by a yeast cell is also identical to the one you
use. And you and a fermenting vat of beer rely on the same laws of
organic chemistry. Hence your intelligence is the same. You are
arguing that there is no difference in the degree of similarity between
humans and between a human and an octopus...because that's what it would
take for the similarity of two humans to not count as evidence for them
having the same degree of consciousness.
Oh and the octopus is squishy and so is a human brain.
> /So I'm a little less sure that they are conscious./
As a practical matter it will make no difference if you think a super
intelligent computer is conscious but it will make a huge difference
if the intelligent computer thinks you are conscious because nothing
can feel empathy for something they don't think is conscious and in
the future it will be the computer who is in the position of power not
the human.
Did anyone ask for your opinion on this point...which you interject as a
diversion from time to time?
> As I said neither you nor other people act that way
[intelligently] all the time
> /No, what you said was they are conscious when they know they
can act intelligently./
Yes, because everybody knows they don't act intelligently all the
time, not when they're sleeping or under anesthesia, and those times
correspond to the times they know they are not conscious.
I see, it's when they know they are not conscious they know they don't
act intelligently. That seems to be a lot of knowing for one who is
unconscious.
>>If evolution found it easier to make a conscious intelligent
being than a non-conscious intelligent being why would human
engineers find the exact opposite to be true?
/> Possibly because human engineers can start from scratch /
I don't see your point. Evolution also started from scratch, simple
amino acids and nucleotides.
It started from scratch to produce life...intelligence was just one
small effect. Engineers already have life.
/> and don't have to evolve their solution from pre-conscious
biology. /
I don't think you intended it but you seem to be arguing that human
engineers would find it even easier to build a conscious mind than
evolution did, but I don't understand that argument either because
engineers had to start with the pre-conscious physics of silicon atoms.
Well, they build airplanes in less that fifty years of trying...and they
used non-flying atoms. How long did evolution take?
/> Your point isn't wrong, but it's only weak evidence./
I admit it's not proof, we'll never have that, but its enormously
powerful evidence.
What? Now you think my similarity to other humans is enormously
powerful evidence that they are conscious in the way I know I am? I
certainly would claim that, but I'm glad to see you reverse your
position that it's as fallacious as assuming my similarity to a dead
person means were both intelligent.
And whatever people say when they're philosophizing, in everyday life
whatever its shortcomings may be intelligent behavior is the *ONLY*
tool they have for distinguishing between conscious matter and
non-conscious matter.
Back to bullshit. You just asserted that the fact that two humans are
similar at many levels, all the way down to the molecular, was powerful
evidence that if one (i.e. me) is conscious then others are too.
Brent
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