"Feyerabend felt that science started as a liberating movement,
but over time it had become increasingly dogmatic and rigid, and
therefore had become increasingly an ideology and despite its
successes science had started to attain some oppressive
features, and it was not possible [any longer] to come up with
an unambiguous way to distinguish science from religion."
/Epistemological anarchism/
From Wikipedia
@philipthrift
On Monday, June 24, 2019 at 6:04:04 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell
wrote:
I think one could be most on the mark by calling this "how
bad money chases out good money." I joined this list last
fall, and in the last couple of months it seems to have
fallen over to various humbugs promoting nonsense. these
threads of late have degenerated into pure rubbish, bad
thinking chasing out good thinking.
LC
On Sunday, June 23, 2019 at 10:46:37 AM UTC-5, John Clark
wrote:
I changed the title of this thread, I don't even know
what the old one means.
On Sun, Jun 23, 2019 at 8:31 AM Bruno Marchal
<[email protected]> wrote:
> /the natural transplant you mention might be the
result of an analog, continuous process./It would
make a difference if all the decimals plays a role
in consciousness.
Even if you ignore the fact that it has been
experimentally proven that Bell's Inequality is violated
and you claim there if a difference between one Hydrogen
atom and another, that is to say somewhere along that
infinite sequence of digits there is a difference, what
you say makes no sense. The atoms in my brain HAVE been
replaced and yet I know for a FACT I have survived; I
*don't* knowfor a fact that the same is true for you but
I think it's reasonable to assume it is. So even if
there is something analog going on inside an atom, if
we're talking about consciousness and survival it's
irrelevant.
/>Of course, Darwin theory of evolution would become
inconsistent, but logically, we cannot exclude the
possibility/
If a mathematical statement, even a well formed
grammatically correct one, contradicts a well
established observation then it would be logical to
conclude the statement does not correspond with reality;
after all every language can write fiction as well as
nonfiction. The fiction could be fun to read and the
very best might even have some sort of vague poetic
relationship to a truth, but there is not a literal
correspondence to reality.
>> Even if a Hydrogen atom has some secret analog
process going on inside of it when one atom gets
replaced by another atom, that is to say when
one analog process gets replaced by another
analog process, I *STILL* survive.
/> That is the mechanist assumption. You can
truncate the infinite decimal expansion in the
analog process running a brain./
It's not an assumption it's a *OBSERVATION*! Atoms in my
brain have been replaced many many times and yet my
consciousness has continued. My only *ASSUMPTION* is
thatyou are like me and are also conscious.
>> So that hypothetical secret mysterious analog
process is the Hydrogen atom's business not
mine, it has nothing to do with me.
/> Assuming that you substitution level is above the
truncation of the decimals used in the atom. But a
non computationalist can assert that his
consciousness requires all decimals.
/
Then the non computationalist must logically conclude
that he is not conscious. I thought solipsists were bad
but at least they thought they were conscious even if
nobody else was, but your non computationalist doesn't
even think he is conscious. How a non conscious person
is able to think of anything I will leave as an exercise
for the reader.
>>> In which theory?
>> In the very controversial theory that says if I
have observed X then I have observed X.
/>You cannot observe a philosophical assumption.
/
You can observe that a philosophical assumption is dead
wrong, such as the philosophical assumption that an
infinite string of digits in an analog process is always
needed to continue consciousness.
>> Proof is not the ultimate, direct experience
outranks it, and I have direct experience I have
survived despite numerous brain transplant
operations.
> /Yes, and that is good for you,//but/ [...]
But nothing! It's good enough for me to say yes to the
doctor and it's good enough for me to say yes to being
frozen. And if your experience has been similar to mine,
if your consciousness has also continued despite your
many brain transplant operations, and if you are a true
fan of logic, then you must conclude it's good enough
for you too.
/> Personal experience is not available when doing
science,/
True, and that is exactly why no consciousness theory
ever devised is scientific, and none every will be. But
theories about how intelligence works are most certainly
scientific.
>> It doesn't matter if I can communicate my reason
for saying yes to the doctor (or yes to being
frozen). I have no obligation to justify my
actions to you or anybody; based on the evidence
I have at my command it is the logical thing to do.
> /Personally, perhaps. Not sure about the guy above,
though./
I'm not sure about the other guy either, he might be a
zombie for all I know, everybody except me might be, all
I know for certain is I'm not. The other guy is going to
have to make his own decision, I can't help him, nobody can.
John K Clark
