Re: Re: Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
Hi John Clark I believe that the will in a monad is a desire to do something which would show up as an appetite. The desired action is then seen and effected by the supreme monad. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/24/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: John Clark Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-23, 12:58:45 Subject: Re: Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Roger Clough wrote: mind can also operate on brain (through the will or an intention). I have no idea at the present of what such a monadic structure might be like. Will or Intention is a high level description as is pressure, but it's not the only valid description. It's true that pressure made the balloon expand but it is also true that air molecules hitting the inside of the balloon made it expand and molecules know nothing about pressure. It's true that I scratched my nose because I wanted too but its also true that it happened because an electrochemical signal was sent from my brain to the nerves in my hand. ?ohn K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: mind can also operate on brain (through the will or an intention). I have no idea at the present of what such a monadic structure might be like. Will or Intention is a high level description as is pressure, but it's not the only valid description. It's true that pressure made the balloon expand but it is also true that air molecules hitting the inside of the balloon made it expand and molecules know nothing about pressure. It's true that I scratched my nose because I wanted too but its also true that it happened because an electrochemical signal was sent from my brain to the nerves in my hand. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
BRUNO: I think that your metaphysics and reading of Leibniz makes sense for me, and comp, but I have to say I don't follow your methodology or teaching method on the religious field, as it contains authoritative arguments. ROGER: Everything I write should be prefaced with IMHO. BRUNO: My feeling is that authoritative argument is the symptom of those who lack faith. ROGER: That doesn't make sense, because faith= trust. And if you don't trust, nothing is authoritative. BRUNO: That error is multiplied in the transfinite when an authoritative argument is attributed to God. ROGER: Sorry, no comprehende. BRUNO: you answer the following question? How could anyone love a God, or a Goddess, threatening you of eternal torture in case you don't love He or She? That's bizarre. How could even just an atom of sincerity reside in that love, with such an explicit horrible threat? ROGER: That love and all love, comes from God, not from me. BRUNO: I hope you don't mind my frankness and the naivety of my questioning. Bruno ROGER: Not at all, as in my experience most agnosticism or atheism is is a product of ignorance, if you don't mind my saying that. :-) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/19/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: John Mikes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-18, 17:17:40 Subject: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing Ha ha: so not consciousness is the 'thing', but 'intelligence'? or is this one also a function (of the brain towards the self?) who is the self? how does the brain DO something ? (as a homunculus?) on its own? Any suggestions? John M??? On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:07 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg IMHO conscousness is not really anything in itself, it is what the brain makes of its contents that the self perceives. The self is intelligence, which is able to focus all pertinent brain activity to a unified point. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/18/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-17, 23:43:08 Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment On Monday, September 17, 2012 11:02:16 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:39 AM, Craig Weinberg ?rote: I understand that, but it still assumes that there is a such thing as a set of functions which could be identified and reproduced that cause consciousness. I don't assume that, because consciousness isn't like anything else. It is the source of all functions and appearances, not the effect of them. Once you have consciousness in the universe, then it can be enhanced and altered in infinite ways, but none of them can replace the experience that is your own. No, the paper does *not* assume that there is a set of functions that if reproduced will will cause consciousness. It assumes that something like what you are saying is right. By assume I mean the implicit assumptions which are unstated in the paper. The thought experiment comes out of a paradox arising from assumptions about qualia and the brain which are both false in my view. I see the brain as the flattened qualia of human experience. This is the point of the thought experiment. The limitations of all forms of measurement and perception preclude all possibility of there ever being a such thing as an exhaustively complete set of third person behaviors of any system. What is it that you don't think I understand? What you don't understand is that an exhaustively complete set of behaviours is not required. Yes, it is. Not for prosthetic enhancements, or repairs to a nervous system, but to replace a nervous system without replacing the person who is using it, yes, there is no set of behaviors which can ever be exhaustive enough in theory to accomplish that. You might be able to do it biologically, but there is no reason to trust it unless and until someone can be walked off of their brain for a few weeks or months and then walked back on. The replacement components need only be within the engineering tolerance of the nervous system components. This is a difficult task but it is achievable in principle. You assume that consciousness can be replaced, but I understand exactly why it can't. You can believe that there is no difference between scooping out your brain stem and replacing it with a functional equivalent as long as it was well engineered, but to me it's a completely misguided notion. Consciousness doesn't exist on the outside of us. Engineering only deals with exteriors. If the universe were designed by engineers, there could be no consciousness. Yes, that is exactly what the paper assumes. Exactly that! It still is modeling the experience
Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
Hi Bruno Marchal If you want to be the one who judges, who decides what is best or if it is logical or not, that's not trust, it's the way of the world. Secularism. The problem with secularism is that it cannot help you in a time of suffering or sorrow. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/20/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-20, 06:06:06 Subject: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing On 20 Sep 2012, at 11:45, Roger Clough wrote: BRUNO: I think that your metaphysics and reading of Leibniz makes sense for me, and comp, but I have to say I don't follow your methodology or teaching method on the religious field, as it contains authoritative arguments. ROGER: Everything I write should be prefaced with IMHO. BRUNO: My feeling is that authoritative argument is the symptom of those who lack faith. ROGER: That doesn't make sense, because faith= trust. And if you don't trust, nothing is authoritative. BRUNO: That error is multiplied in the transfinite when an authoritative argument is attributed to God. ROGER: Sorry, no comprehende. I can trust entities which provides explanations, not entities threatening with torture in case I do not love them. Humans have attributed to God authoritative arguments, with the result of justifying their own use of it. I can understand such argument in warfare, or when decision must be taken without the time to make a rational decision, but in the religious field, I think that authoritative argument have to fail, they only display the lack of faith of those who use them, or, more often, they display their special terrestrial interests. BRUNO: you answer the following question? How could anyone love a God, or a Goddess, threatening you of eternal torture in case you don't love He or She? That's bizarre. How could even just an atom of sincerity reside in that love, with such an explicit horrible threat? ROGER: That love and all love, comes from God, not from me. But then why God has to threaten his creature to get love from them? And again, how could that love be sincere? This does not make sense. Bruno BRUNO: I hope you don't mind my frankness and the naivety of my questioning. Bruno ROGER: Not at all, as in my experience most agnosticism or atheism is is a product of ignorance, if you don't mind my saying that. :-) Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/19/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: John Mikes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-18, 17:17:40 Subject: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing Ha ha: so not consciousness is the 'thing', but 'intelligence'? or is this one also a function (of the brain towards the self?) who is the self? how does the brain DO something ? (as a homunculus?) on its own? Any suggestions? John M??? On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:07 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg IMHO conscousness is not really anything in itself, it is what the brain makes of its contents that the self perceives. The self is intelligence, which is able to focus all pertinent brain activity to a unified point. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/18/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-17, 23:43:08 Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment On Monday, September 17, 2012 11:02:16 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:39 AM, Craig Weinberg ?rote: I understand that, but it still assumes that there is a such thing as a set of functions which could be identified and reproduced that cause consciousness. I don't assume that, because consciousness isn't like anything else. It is the source of all functions and appearances, not the effect of them. Once you have consciousness in the universe, then it can be enhanced and altered in infinite ways, but none of them can replace the experience that is your own. No, the paper does *not* assume that there is a set of functions that if reproduced will will cause consciousness. It assumes that something like what you are saying is right. By assume I mean the implicit assumptions which are unstated in the paper. The thought experiment comes out of a paradox arising from assumptions about qualia and the brain which are both false in my view. I see the brain as the flattened qualia of human experience. This is the point of the thought experiment. The limitations of all forms of measurement and perception preclude all possibility of there ever being
Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
Hi Craig Weinberg Things have extension and are physical, a non-thing has no extension and is not physical. Consciousness or mind is not physical, at least in my understanding. The brain is physical. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/19/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-18, 13:54:30 Subject: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing On Tuesday, September 18, 2012 6:08:46 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg IMHO conscousness is not really anything in itself, it is what the brain makes of its contents that the self perceives. It gets tricky. Depends what you mean by a thing. I would say that consciousness is the less-than-anything and the more-than-anything which experiences the opposite of itself as somethings. It is otherthanthing. In order to think or talk about this, we need to represent it as a subjective idea 'thing'. Make no mistake though. The brain is nothing but an experience of many things, of our mind's experience of our body using our body's experience of medical instruments. The capacity to experience is primary. No structure can generate an experience unless it is made out of something which already has that capacity. If I make a perfect model of H2O out of anything other than actual hydrogen and oxygen atoms, I will not get water. The self is intelligence, which is able to focus all pertinent brain activity to a unified point. You don't need intelligence to have a self. Infants are pretty selfish, and not terribly intelligent. Brain activity is overrated as well. Jellyfish and worms have no brain. Bacteria have no brains, yet they behave intelligently (see also quorum sensing). Intelligence is everywhere - just not human intelligence. Craig Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net 9/18/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-17, 23:43:08 Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment On Monday, September 17, 2012 11:02:16 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:39 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: I understand that, but it still assumes that there is a such thing as a set of functions which could be identified and reproduced that cause consciousness. I don't assume that, because consciousness isn't like anything else. It is the source of all functions and appearances, not the effect of them. Once you have consciousness in the universe, then it can be enhanced and altered in infinite ways, but none of them can replace the experience that is your own. No, the paper does *not* assume that there is a set of functions that if reproduced will will cause consciousness. It assumes that something like what you are saying is right. By assume I mean the implicit assumptions which are unstated in the paper. The thought experiment comes out of a paradox arising from assumptions about qualia and the brain which are both false in my view. I see the brain as the flattened qualia of human experience. This is the point of the thought experiment. The limitations of all forms of measurement and perception preclude all possibility of there ever being a such thing as an exhaustively complete set of third person behaviors of any system. What is it that you don't think I understand? What you don't understand is that an exhaustively complete set of behaviours is not required. Yes, it is. Not for prosthetic enhancements, or repairs to a nervous system, but to replace a nervous system without replacing the person who is using it, yes, there is no set of behaviors which can ever be exhaustive enough in theory to accomplish that. You might be able to do it biologically, but there is no reason to trust it unless and until someone can be walked off of their brain for a few weeks or months and then walked back on. The replacement components need only be within the engineering tolerance of the nervous system components. This is a difficult task but it is achievable in principle. You assume that consciousness can be replaced, but I understand exactly why it can't. You can believe that there is no difference between scooping out your brain stem and replacing it with a functional equivalent as long as it was well engineered, but to me it's a completely misguided notion. Consciousness doesn't exist on the outside of us. Engineering only deals with exteriors. If the universe were designed by engineers, there could be no consciousness. Yes, that is exactly what the paper assumes
Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Things have extension and are physical In other words they are nouns. a non-thing has no extension and is not physical. Like a adjective. Consciousness or mind is not physical So its not a noun. The brain is physical. Yes, so mind must be what the brain does. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
Hi John Mikes Once you leave the material world for the ideal one, all things -- or at least many things-- now become possible. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/19/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: John Mikes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-18, 17:17:40 Subject: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing Ha ha: so not consciousness is the 'thing', but 'intelligence'? or is this one also a function (of the brain towards the self?) who is the self? how does the brain DO something?? (as a homunculus?) on its own? Any suggestions? John M On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:07 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg IMHO conscousness is not really anything in itself, it is what the brain makes of its contents that the self perceives. The self is intelligence, which is able to focus all pertinent brain activity to a unified point. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/18/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-17, 23:43:08 Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment On Monday, September 17, 2012 11:02:16 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:39 AM, Craig Weinberg ?rote: I understand that, but it still assumes that there is a such thing as a set of functions which could be identified and reproduced that cause consciousness. I don't assume that, because consciousness isn't like anything else. It is the source of all functions and appearances, not the effect of them. Once you have consciousness in the universe, then it can be enhanced and altered in infinite ways, but none of them can replace the experience that is your own. No, the paper does *not* assume that there is a set of functions that if reproduced will will cause consciousness. It assumes that something like what you are saying is right. By assume I mean the implicit assumptions which are unstated in the paper. The thought experiment comes out of a paradox arising from assumptions about qualia and the brain which are both false in my view. I see the brain as the flattened qualia of human experience. This is the point of the thought experiment. The limitations of all forms of measurement and perception preclude all possibility of there ever being a such thing as an exhaustively complete set of third person behaviors of any system. What is it that you don't think I understand? What you don't understand is that an exhaustively complete set of behaviours is not required. Yes, it is. Not for prosthetic enhancements, or repairs to a nervous system, but to replace a nervous system without replacing the person who is using it, yes, there is no set of behaviors which can ever be exhaustive enough in theory to accomplish that. You might be able to do it biologically, but there is no reason to trust it unless and until someone can be walked off of their brain for a few weeks or months and then walked back on. The replacement components need only be within the engineering tolerance of the nervous system components. This is a difficult task but it is achievable in principle. You assume that consciousness can be replaced, but I understand exactly why it can't. You can believe that there is no difference between scooping out your brain stem and replacing it with a functional equivalent as long as it was well engineered, but to me it's a completely misguided notion. Consciousness doesn't exist on the outside of us. Engineering only deals with exteriors. If the universe were designed by engineers, there could be no consciousness. Yes, that is exactly what the paper assumes. Exactly that! It still is modeling the experience of qualia as having a quantitative relation with the ratio of brain to non-brain. That isn't the only way to model it, and I use a different model. I assume that my friends have not been replaced by robots. If they have been then that means the robots can almost perfectly replicate their behaviour, since I (and people in general) am very good at picking up even tiny deviations from normal behaviour. The question then is, if the function of a human can be replicated this closely by a machine does that mean the consciousness can also be replicated? The answer is yes, since otherwise we would have the possibility of a person having radically different experiences but behaving normally and being unaware that their experiences were different. The answer is no. A cartoon of Bugs Bunny has no experiences but behaves just like Bugs Bunny would if he had experiences. You are eating the menu. And if it were possible to replicate the behaviour without the experiences - i.e. make a zombie - it would be possible to make a partial zombie, which lacks some experiences but behaves normally and doesn't
Re: Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
Hi John Clark Very good. I might amplify it simply by saying that mind can also operate on brain (through the will or an intention). I have no idea at the present of what such a monadic structure might be like. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/19/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: John Clark Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-19, 09:51:57 Subject: Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing On Wed, Sep 19, 2012? Roger Clough wrote: Things have extension and are physical In other words they are nouns.? a ?non-thing has no extension and is not physical. Like a adjective.? Consciousness or mind is not physical So its not a noun. The brain is physical. Yes, so mind must be what the brain does. ? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: IMHO conscousness is an activity not a thing
On Wednesday, September 19, 2012 8:49:35 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg Things have extension and are physical, a non-thing has no extension and is not physical. Consciousness or mind is not physical, at least in my understanding. The brain is physical. Hi Roger, Taking drugs changes the mind. Caffeine is physical and it causes changes in the brain which we experience subjectively. Everything is physical, but interior experiences are private, temporal, and sensory-motive, while exterior objects are public, spatial, and electromagnetic. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/uM2siukRBwUJ. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
