On Sun, Jul 7, 2024, 11:58 AM John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 6, 2024 at 3:03 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > *> ** I think such foresight is a necessary component of intelligence, >> not a "byproduct".* > > > I agree, I can detect the existence of foresight in others and so can > natural selection, and that's why we have it. It aids in getting our genes > transferred into the next generation. But I was talking about consciousness > not foresight, and regardless of how important we personally think > consciousness is, from evolution's point of view it's utterly useless, > and yet we have it, or at least I have it. > This is the position of epiphenomenalism: that conscious has no effects. It is what makes zombies logically possible. But you don't seem to think zombies are logically possible, so then epiphenomenalism is false, and consciousness does have effects. As you said previously, if consciousness had no effects, there would be no reason for it to evolve in the first place. Why? It must be because consciousness is the byproduct of something else > that is not useless, there are no other possibilities. > There is another possibility: consciousness is not useless. Jason Incidentally, GPT has demonstrated foresight, when shown a picture of > somebody holding a pair of scissors next to a string holding down a helium > balloon and asked "what comes next?" it replies that the string is about > to be cut by the scissors and then the balloon will float away. > > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> > hbf > > > > > >> Anybody who claims that philosophical zombies are possible needs to ask >> themselves one question. Natural selection cannot select for something >> it cannot see, and it can't directly see consciousness any better than we >> can, except in ourselves; so how did Evolution manage to produce at least >> one conscious being, and probably many billions of them? I think the answer >> is that although Evolution can't see consciousness it can certainly see >> intelligent activity, so consciousness must be an inevitable byproduct of >> intelligence. >> >> I >> >> Or to put it another way, it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way >> data feels when it is being processed. After all, without exception, every >> iterated sequence of "why" or "how" questions either goes on forever or >> terminates in a brute fact. >> >> John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis >> <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> >> wfn >> -- >> >> -- > 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/CAJPayv3XGz7MJdzy7P2cnmq96McL1U_6r8k5bKpQKMCbkS5bBA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3XGz7MJdzy7P2cnmq96McL1U_6r8k5bKpQKMCbkS5bBA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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/CA%2BBCJUh_69v0K%2BQd0dJF7DrQh8-hfc%3DrJRfVizA3Adrx1DqW-w%40mail.gmail.com.
