Is A like some spirit or ghost that invades the domain of B? Or does B
invade A?
@philipthrift
On Friday, May 3, 2019 at 1:44:34 PM UTC-5, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 1:10 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote:
I think that is right. But when you consider some simplified
cases, e.g. a computation written out on paper (or Bruno's
movie graph) it becomes apparent that consciousness must
ultimately refer to other things.
Right, the movie graph argument shows that consciousness doesn't
supervene on physical computation. Nevertheless, the character of
my consciousness still corresponds with the kind of cybernetic
system implemented by e.g. my brain and body, as instantiated by
the infinity of programs going through my state.
Much is made of "self-awareness" but this is usually just
having an internal model of one's body, or social standing or
some other model of the self. It is not consciousness of
consciousness...that is only a temporal reflection: "I was
conscious just now."
I see it a little differently. The self-model/ego is a
higher-order construct that organizes the system in a holistic
way. We take this for granted - it's the water we swim in - but
our minds are radically re-organized as children by the taught
narrative that we have an identity and this unitary identity is
the /cause/ of our behavior (when the evidence shows that we
merely rationalize our behavior in terms of that narrative). Point
being, the way the cybernetic system is organized takes a quantum
leap in complexity as a result - and this is responsible for the
subjective awareness of ourselves as people.
In the dream state (except for lucid dreaming), our self-model is
not energized - ongoing experience in dreams is not organized in
terms of that narrative of being someone. When lucid dreaming
begins, it is because we can say "I am dreaming", which is to say
that the self-model becomes active. In that moment, the character
of that dream consciousness changes dramatically.
In general terms we could say consciousness is awareness of
the evironment, where that includes one's body. Damasio
identifies emotions as awareness of the bodies state. The
point is that the stuff of which we are aware and which we
find agreement with other people's awareness is what we infer
to be the physical world. It might be possible to be
conscious in some sense without a physical world, but it would
be qualitatively different.
Yes. However, it's not clear what it would mean for a conscious
agent to experience something that wasn't a "physical" world, even
if the environment was completely virtual. The Matrix illustrates
that nicely.
Terren
Brent
On 5/3/2019 6:27 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:
One way to get around this is to hold that consciousness is
associated with the way information is processed. This is
substrate independent - the fact that a brain is physical is
beside the point. You could implement a brain in software,
and insofar as the same kinds of information processing
occur, it would be conscious in the same kind of way.
I find this idea compelling because it makes the link between
brains and consciousness without requiring matter, and
provides a framework for understanding consciousnesses of
other kinds of machines. All that's required is to assume
there is something it is like for computation to occur.
Terren
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 2:26 AM <[email protected]
<javascript:>> wrote:
On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 8:03:52 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 5/2/2019 4:55 PM, [email protected] wrote:
On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 5:37:26 PM UTC-5, Brent
wrote:
On 5/2/2019 11:39 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Apparently *matter* is not "reducible" to just
the physics a couple of particles.
Then you're not a materialist. You think there
is matter plus something else, that everyone
calls "mind", but you're going to call it
"matter" and add it to everyone else's list of
matter so you can still call yourself a materialist.
Brent
But everything reducing to the physics of particles
is thought of as *physicalism* (not materialism):
*Physicalism and materialism*
Reductive physicalism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductive_physicalism>...is
normally assumed to be incompatible with
panpsychism. Materialism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism>, if held
to be distinct from physicalism, is compatible with
panpsychism insofar as mental properties
What mental properties? intention? reflection?
remembering? That's what I mean by saying
attributing "experience" to matter is an unprincipled
half-measure.
Brent
Brains are matter, just as livers, legs, trees, tables,
rocks, comets, planets, stars, cockroaches, galaxies,
bacteria .. are matter.
Brains produce intentions, reflections, remembrances, ... .
So (at least some) matter of the cosmos has psychical
(mental) properties.
The body+mind idea, the idea that mind is something
separate from body, is perhaps the worst idea ever invented.
@philipthrift
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