On 9/18/2019 3:22 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 08:16, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 9/18/2019 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 4:25 PM 'Brent Meeker' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: /> //Haven't you ever awoken from surgery? AG / / / />> Yes, and I think I was just the same as before and so does everyone else. But maybe I am fundamentally different. How would I know?/ >>> You'd ask people who knew you well. And if you did that you would hear them make noises with their mouth, but whatever consciousness is it certainly isn't those mouth noises. If your lucky you may be able to detect a pattern in those noises that would indicate intelligence, but you would have to make an additional assumption to conclude that also indicated consciousness, namely that consciousness is an inevitable byproduct of intelligence. In the real world everybody makes that assumption a thousand times a day because the alternative is solipsism.They question was whether you could find out you were fundamentally different after an operation. Not whether or not your friends were conscious. Saibal said "No." apparently based only on the fact that he couldn't trust introspection. But in that would equally imply he couldn't tell whether he fundamentally changed from day to day, or minute to minute. Of course nothing can provide certainty, but your friends saying you act differently or you don't would be good evidence. It's the same level of evidence for thinking one another consciousness, but it's broader since you might be different in some way you were not conscious of.And if you were different in some way you were not conscious of, it wouldn’t matter.
How do you figure that? Suppose you're a murderous psychopath after the operation. Just because YOU don't remember not being a murderous psychopath before, it may still matter.
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