On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 5:56 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < [email protected]> wrote:
>> I only have experience with my own consciousness but I know for a fact >> that depending on the time of day my consciousness can be qualitatively >> different, and I've known that for a long time. Back when I was a student >> taking a calculus exam my consciousness had reached a high-level but later >> that same night when I was falling asleep it was at a much lower level and >> just a little later it fell all the way to zero, and then what seemed >> instantaneous but actually took 8 hours it started up again. > > > * > True. But you left off the interesting conclusion,* > Conclusion? > *i.e. that different kinds of consciousness maybe connected to different > kinds of intelligence. * > Maybe, maybe not, I don't know and will never know, although I don't see how Darwinian Evolution could've produced consciousness if it was not the inevitable byproduct of intelligence. That's why I think it would be wise to stop worrying about how consciousness works and concentrate on how intelligence works, *> Just as your consciousness can go from awake to asleep (which is > actually different from unconscious), it can also be merely perceptive, or > it can imagine things, or think of a narrative story, and these can be > mixed with various emotional feelings. Right?* > My consciousness can do that but I have no evidence any other consciousness can, or evidence they can't, or even evidence that other consciousnesses exist; but I must assume that they do because I simply could not function if I really believed that I was the only conscious being in the universe, so it's very useful for me to believe that I am not alone. But that doesn't prove that what I believe is true. > > *If you agree or not, either way it implies that we can test theories of > consciousness.* > In the final analysis the only way to test a theory is by making objective observations about the way things behave, but consciousness is a subjective phenomenon and that's what causes the problem. The theory that other humans besides me are conscious is perfectly consistent with all observable evidence, but so is the theory that I am the only conscious being in the universe, and so is the theory that EVERYTHING is equally conscious, even grains of sand, even atoms, even quarks and electrons. The trouble is ANY consciousness theory will fit the observable facts just fine, and that's why ALL consciousness theories are utterly useless, except for the theory that solipsism is untrue, that one has a use. John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> Qon -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2zWA322y0wsMxP0-1k-TWVRwdfy%2BoGZ1vbwXwazj1WTw%40mail.gmail.com.
