Re: bruno list
On 20.08.2011 00:38 meekerdb said the following: On 8/19/2011 11:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: It seems that at present there is only one candidate for a zombie - Dennet, who defending his theory seems to refuse his own consciousness (I do not remember now where I have seen this nice statement, it could be that in the Gray's book but I am not sure). Evgenii I don't think Dennett refuses his own consciousness. Do you have a reference for this? Brent Please do not take it literally. The meaning here is more that the Dennett's theory refuses his own consciousness. If I find the source of this statement, I will let you know. Evgenii -- 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: bruno list
On 8/20/2011 12:12 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 20.08.2011 00:38 meekerdb said the following: On 8/19/2011 11:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: It seems that at present there is only one candidate for a zombie - Dennet, who defending his theory seems to refuse his own consciousness (I do not remember now where I have seen this nice statement, it could be that in the Gray's book but I am not sure). Evgenii I don't think Dennett refuses his own consciousness. Do you have a reference for this? Brent Please do not take it literally. The meaning here is more that the Dennett's theory refuses his own consciousness. If I find the source of this statement, I will let you know. Evgenii I wasn't taking it literally. I took it to mean Dennett believes there could be philosophical zombies; but I don't think he believes that. Brent -- 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.
Dennett, zombie and zimbo
Trying to remember where I have seen the statement about Dennett, I have made search on Google. Two findings (both are not my source though): 1) Is Daniel Dennett a zombie? Discussion on ephilosopher.com where the question, I believe is close to the statement that I have seen. This is not completely serious, but is the crux of my question. It bothers me that his and other reductionist theories of consciousness are completely denying any phenomenology. It doesn't sit well with me because I am pretty convinced that I have one. Now, Dennett would be the first to say that it just 'seems' to me that I have a phenomenology but that is the point isn't it? If it seems to me then I have it. How can anyone think otherwise?? Are theere real zombies out there and is Dennett one of them? http://www.ephilosopher.com/philosophy-forums/metaphysics-and-epistemology/is-daniel-dennett-a-zombie?/ 2) COULD DANIEL DENNETT BE A ZOMBIE? by Mike Kearns Could Daniel Dennett be a zombie? The way he tells it, you'd almost have to say yes. For he has been kind to zombies in his recent writings. www.kearnsianthoughts.com/articles/DennettZombie_Mike_Kearns.pdf Dennett by himself seems to deny this: THE UNIMAGINED PREPOSTEROUSNESS OF ZOMBIES Daniel C. Dennett SYMPOSIUM ON ‘CONVERSATIONS WITH ZOMBIES eripsa.org/files/dennett%20zombies.pdf Interestingly enough, Dennett has invented a zimbo: I introduced the category of a zimbo, by definition a zombie equipped for higher-order reflective informational states (e.g., beliefs about its other beliefs and its other zombic states). Hence he could be not a zombie but a zimbo. Evgenii -- 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: Dennett, zombie and zimbo
On Aug 20, 8:02 am, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: Now, Dennett would be the first to say that it just 'seems' to me that I have a phenomenology but that is the point isn't it? If it seems to me then I have it. How can anyone think otherwise?? Exactly. The fact that we feel is not contingent upon any external validation of the content of those feelings. Subjective phenomenology is a legitimate and irreducibly primitive part of the universe at the same level as probability or cause and effect. Since it's ontological advantage is private orientation, it is actually where subjectivity underlaps externality that is significant and signifying...the extent to which interior fiction has the potential to diverge from objective fact is where teleology derives it's power, and therefore a great improvement over a zombie universe of pure logical physics. Craig And Dennett is a zimbo. James Randi too. They are the same zimbo. -- 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.
IBM produces first 'brain chips'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14574747 Looks like we may be finding out sooner rather than later whether there is more to the psyche than networking logic. -- 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: COMP refutation paper - finally out
On 19 Aug 2011, at 18:49, benjayk wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Aug 2011, at 20:13, benjayk wrote: It depends on what we mean with primitive ontological entity. What we assume to exist (or to make sense) explicitly when we build a theory. You could define this as primitive ontological entity, but honestly this has nothing to do with what I call a primitive ontological entity. As I understand a primitive ontological entity, it doesn't need to be assumed, and even less explicitly. It is just there whether we assume it or not, and this is what makes it primitive and ontological. You confuse a theory and its (intended) model (or subject matter). This is a widespread confusion, and that is related to the fact that physicists use model where logicians use theory. Hm, I don't understand where my confusion lies. If anything, it seems to me confusing theory and subject matter lies in considering anything that depends on assumptions within a theory a primitive ontological entity. If it dependent on assumptions, it doesn't seem to be ontological. In that case I understand why you want consciousness to be primitive. But in a theory, by definition, you have to assume what exists. All existence on anything we want to talk in a theoretical frmaework as to be assumed, or derived from what we assumed, even consciousness. If not, such theories are no more 3-communicable. In fact I think that you are confusing the ontology, and the theoretical description of that ontology. I think this is due to a lack of familiarity with theoretical reasoning. Hm... OK. I am not sure that there are valid 3-communicable theories about fundamental issues. I guess that is what it comes down to. I am not against science, I am just skeptical that it can really touch fundamental issues. It seems to me we always sneak 3-incommunable things into such a theory. This is the case for all theorizing. Like we often use the intuition of natural numbers implicitly. So in COMP, I think the 3-communicable part doesn't ultimately explain much fundamental, as it totally relies on the subjective interpretation, that you call the inside view of arithmetics, that seems to me just to be the primary conciousness. Comp explains a lot, but you have to study it to grasp this by yourself. The inside views are recovered by the intensional variant of the provability predicate. It makes comp (the classical theory of knowledge) testable, because the physical reality is among those views. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: For me it is just so integral to everything that I can't see how calling it primitive could be wrong. Both matter and consciousness have that feature, but this means that they are fundamental, not that they are primitive. In the sense above you may be right, but then I don't agree with this definition. Let us use primitive in my sense, to fix the idea, and let us use fundamental for your sense. Those are the sense used in this list for awhile, and it would be confusing to change suddenly the terming. OK. The terminology doesn't really matter. But then I have to say that primitive has nothing to do with what is primary in reality. It is just what we treat as primary in a theory, which may have little do to with what is primary in reality. With comp, you can take the numbers, or the combinators, or any finite data structures. It does not matter at all. It does not makes sense to ask what are the real one, because they are ontologically equivalent. With the numbers, you can prove that the combinators (or the programs) exist. With the combinators, you can prove that the numbers exists (and do what they are supposed to do). But, to talk and search for the consequences, we have to fix the initial theory. They all leads to the same theory of consciousness and matter. Good, but this doesn't really change what I wrote. Just because we assume the numbers to be ontological and derive consciousness from that, which we *assume* to be epistemological from the start, doesn't mean that this reflects reality. It might as well be the case that consciousness is ontologically there from the start, gives rise to numbers, and numbers can reflect their source (derive its existence). I think this question cannot be settled rationally. We can just ask ourselves What does really make sense to me?. With comp consciousness is platonistically co-extensive with the numbers (including their additive and multiplicative laws), but this reduce the mind-body problem to a body problem. And the mind problem is reduce to the study of what is true *about* the machine (this includes many things true for the machine but not justifiable by her). Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: It's a bit like saying that existence isn't primitive. What would that even mean? Deriving the existence
Re: Turing Machines
On 19 Aug 2011, at 20:18, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 18.08.2011 16:24 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 17 Aug 2011, at 20:07, meekerdb wrote: On 8/17/2011 10:36 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 16.08.2011 20:47 meekerdb said the following: On 8/16/2011 11:03 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: Yes, this is why in my first post, I said consider God's Turing machine (free from our limitations). Then it is obvious that with the appropriate tape, a physical system can be approximated to any desired level of accuracy so long as it is predictable. Colin said such models of physics or chemistry are impossible, so I hope he elaborates on what makes these systems unpredictable. I have to repeat that the current simulation technology just does not scale. With it even God will not help. The only way that I could imagine is that God's Turing machine is based on completely different simulation technology (this however means that our current knowledge of physical laws and/or numerics is wrong). Scale doesn't matter at the level of theoretical possibility. Bruno's UD is the most inefficient possible way to compute this universe - but he only cares that it's possible. All universal Turing machines are equivalent so it doesn't matter what God's is based on. Maybe you just mean the world is not computable in the sense that it is nomologically impossible to compute it faster than just letting it happen. I understand what you say. On the other hand however, it is still good to look at the current level of simulation technology, especially when people make predictions on what happens in the future (in other messages the possibility of brain simulation and talk about physico-chemical processes). From such a viewpoint, even a level of one-cell simulation is not reachable in the foreseeable future. Hence, in my view, after the discussion about theoretical limits it would be good to look at the reality. It might probably help to think the assumptions over. I would say that it is small practical things that force us to reconsider our conceptions. Evgenii I agree with that sentiment. That's why I often try to think of consciousness in terms of what it would mean to provide a Mars Rover with consciousness. According to Bruno the ones we've sent to Mars were already conscious, since their computers were capable of Lobian logic. I don't remember having said this. I even doubt that Mars Rover is universal, although that might be serendipitously possible (universality is very cheap), in which case it would be as conscious as a human being under a high dose of salvia (a form of consciousness quite disconnected from terrestrial realities). But it is very probable that it is not Löbian. I don't see why they would have given the induction axioms to Mars Rover (the induction axioms is what gives the Löbian self-referential power). But clearly they did not have human-like consciousness (or intelligence). I think it much more likely that we could make a Mars Rover with consciousness and intelligence somewhat similar to humans using von Neumann computers or artificial neural nets than by trying to actually simulate a brain. I think consciousness might be attributed to the virgin (non programmed) universal machine, but such consciousness is really the basic consciousness of everyone, before the contingent differentiation on the histories. LUMs, on the contrary, have a self-consciousness, even when basically virgin: they makes a distinction between them and some possible independent or transcendental reality. No doubt the truth is a bit far more subtle, if only because there are intermediate stage between UMs and LUMs. When I search on Google Scholar lobian robot then there is only one hit (I guess that this is Bruno's thesis). When I search however loebian robot there are some more hits with for example Loebian embodiment. I do not not know what it means but in my view it would be interesting to build a robot with a Loebian logic and research it. In my view, it is not enough to state that there is already some consciousness there. It would be rather necessary to research on what it actually means. Say it has visual consciousness experience, it feels pain or something else. It would be interesting to see what people do in this area. For example, Loebian embodiment sounds interesting and it would be nice to find some review about it. Löbian machine is an idiosyncrasy that I use as a shorter expression for what the logicians usually describes by a sufficiently rich theory. I have not yet decide on how to exactly define them. I hesitate between a very weak sense, like any belief system (machine, theory) close for the Löb rule (which says that you can deduce p from Bp - p). A stronger sense is : any belief system having the Löb's formula in it. So it contains the formal Löb rule: B(Bp - p) - Bp. But my current favorite definition is: any universal machine which can prove p - Bp for p
Re: Unconscious Components
On 20 Aug 2011, at 04:24, meekerdb wrote:
On 8/19/2011 6:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
Perhaps later. See a bit below. Bp is meant for the machine
believes
p when written in the language of the machine. If the machine
is a
theorem prover for arithmetic, Bp is an abbreviation for
beweisbar('p') with beweisbar the arithmetical provability
predicate
of Gödel, and 'p' is for the Gödel number of p (that is a
description
of p in the language of the machine). The # is for any
proposition.
Don't you need some temporality? B means proves, but you use it
an tenseless form also to mean provable and then also to mean
believes. But a machine being emulated by the UD doesn't prove
everything provable at once. It works through them (and takes a
great many steps) and so it does believe everything that is
provable. Does that mean no thread of it's emulation is Loebian
until induction has been proved/believed in that thread?
At some level yes. Human induction rule (which makes them Löbian) is
probably hardwired by our biological history.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: bruno list
On 8/20/2011 4:04 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Aug 19, 10:26 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 8/19/2011 6:22 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: The retina doesn't act on the world in response to light? It doesn't send a signal to the brain in the same manner that changes in a metal strip triggers the HVAC system? The hypothesis was that the retina was detached from the visual cortex. So it has not way to act on the world. It's like a thermostat that's not connected to the furnace. Who said anything about a furnace? Apples to apples, thermostat sensor = retina, or thermostat sensor = rod cell. Both things act on *their* world, responding to an electromagnetic change in their environment* in their own way. No they don't. The thermostat that's connected to the furnace can modify it's world, who's only attribute is temperature. If it's not connected to a furnace then it can sense temperature, but it can't act on it. Whether or not a retina is connected to a furnace or a metal strip is attached to the optic nerve is irrelevant as to their ability to sense electromagnetic changes within a certain range of frequencies. A furnace or a visual cortex is an interpreter of retina interpreting light or an interpreter of metal strips interpreting heat. Your response is interesting though because you are defining sensation as nonexistent without being tied to a tangible impact on 'the world'. This means that already you are compelled to disqualify all passive experience as less than an action which can be seen from the outside and 'not just internally'. You assume that an HVAC is what makes something a thermostat - function = existence. Right. I don't require that it act on the world at the same moment you consider passive, but that it be able to act on the world after passive consideration. I think that consciousness depends on both perception and on action. I can't believe that you want me to accept that eyes can't see but metal can. What about our skin, surely you must give that the same consideration when it contracts into goosebumps as when a strip of metal contracts in size? Sure it's acting in the world - not just internally. To me that's a rather religious or patriarchal approach - which is fine, I just think that it probably precludes any impartial examination of consciousness on it's own merits. From that perspective, there is no significant difference between a philosophical zombie and a person, as long as the zombie fulfills the same actions on 'the world' (meaning the external physical processes outside of our Selves) it *must* be conscious. From that perspective, imagination, dreams, and fiction have no value except when they happen to lead to an improvement in the manufacture of Whiffle balls or hand grenades. I'm glad that the universe doesn't believe that also, or we'd all be some form of insect. What makes you think you aren't? Brent *If anyone is interested in the SEE view, an electromagnetic change in the environment is actually an electromagnetic change in physical objects within the PRIF. A thermostat sensor expands and contracts in response to the level of excitement in the air, which has been excited by the sun baked walls, warm animal bodies, electrical appliances, etc. Each thing is contributing energy, but not as a substancelike stuff, but as a semantic signal that it's time to relax or tense up. It's a signal that is as discrete or flowing, simple or complex that the receiver hardware can interpret. Craig -- 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: COMP refutation paper - finally out
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Aug 2011, at 18:49, benjayk wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Aug 2011, at 20:13, benjayk wrote: It depends on what we mean with primitive ontological entity. What we assume to exist (or to make sense) explicitly when we build a theory. You could define this as primitive ontological entity, but honestly this has nothing to do with what I call a primitive ontological entity. As I understand a primitive ontological entity, it doesn't need to be assumed, and even less explicitly. It is just there whether we assume it or not, and this is what makes it primitive and ontological. You confuse a theory and its (intended) model (or subject matter). This is a widespread confusion, and that is related to the fact that physicists use model where logicians use theory. Hm, I don't understand where my confusion lies. If anything, it seems to me confusing theory and subject matter lies in considering anything that depends on assumptions within a theory a primitive ontological entity. If it dependent on assumptions, it doesn't seem to be ontological. In that case I understand why you want consciousness to be primitive. But in a theory, by definition, you have to assume what exists. All existence on anything we want to talk in a theoretical frmaework as to be assumed, or derived from what we assumed, even consciousness. If not, such theories are no more 3-communicable. In fact I think that you are confusing the ontology, and the theoretical description of that ontology. I think this is due to a lack of familiarity with theoretical reasoning. Hm... OK. I am not sure that there are valid 3-communicable theories about fundamental issues. I guess that is what it comes down to. I am not against science, I am just skeptical that it can really touch fundamental issues. It seems to me we always sneak 3-incommunable things into such a theory. This is the case for all theorizing. Like we often use the intuition of natural numbers implicitly. So we agree on this. My point is than that we must be careful if we claim that some theory explains in a 3-communicable fundamental matters. It may be we sneak our intuition into the theory. Our intuition of natural numbers may be fundamentally inseparable from our intution of what is beyond. So it might be we use numbers + our intuition what is beyond and claim that we derived it from just numbers. It seems to me to be what COMP does. Bruno Marchal wrote: So in COMP, I think the 3-communicable part doesn't ultimately explain much fundamental, as it totally relies on the subjective interpretation, that you call the inside view of arithmetics, that seems to me just to be the primary conciousness. Comp explains a lot, but you have to study it to grasp this by yourself. The inside views are recovered by the intensional variant of the provability predicate. It makes comp (the classical theory of knowledge) testable, because the physical reality is among those views. Honestly I can't see that studying COMP will help with what is my problem. It seems to be more fundamental than some issue of understanding a theory in depth. Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: For me it is just so integral to everything that I can't see how calling it primitive could be wrong. Both matter and consciousness have that feature, but this means that they are fundamental, not that they are primitive. In the sense above you may be right, but then I don't agree with this definition. Let us use primitive in my sense, to fix the idea, and let us use fundamental for your sense. Those are the sense used in this list for awhile, and it would be confusing to change suddenly the terming. OK. The terminology doesn't really matter. But then I have to say that primitive has nothing to do with what is primary in reality. It is just what we treat as primary in a theory, which may have little do to with what is primary in reality. With comp, you can take the numbers, or the combinators, or any finite data structures. It does not matter at all. It does not makes sense to ask what are the real one, because they are ontologically equivalent. With the numbers, you can prove that the combinators (or the programs) exist. With the combinators, you can prove that the numbers exists (and do what they are supposed to do). But, to talk and search for the consequences, we have to fix the initial theory. They all leads to the same theory of consciousness and matter. Good, but this doesn't really change what I wrote. Just because we assume the numbers to be ontological and derive consciousness from that, which we *assume* to be epistemological from the start, doesn't mean that this reflects reality. It might as well be the case that consciousness is ontologically there from the start, gives
Re: Unconscious Components
PART I On Aug 20, 12:16 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Aug 2011, at 03:14, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Aug 18, 9:43 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2011, at 06:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: Not sure I understand. Do I hope for this world and therefore it exists to me in a solipsistic way? I mean you can hope to be true, but you can never know that you are true for sure about anything, except your consciousness. Transcendental realities are transcendental, simply. OK. I thought you were saying something else, like 'thoughts create reality'. Only physical realities. But I don't expect anyone to understand what that means, without grasping it by themselves. The UDA is the explanation. Whenever you say these kinds of things, I assume that you're just talking about the arithmetic Matrix seeming real to us because we're in it. Part of us and whatever it is that we experience as physically real are mathematically agreeing to treat the relationship as if it were physically real. If that's what you're saying there, then I completely get that, and I'm not saying that that is not true. My view adds to that two, I think revolutionary ideas.: 1. The relationships that make up that matrix are comp arithmetic on one side (literally on one side, like a Klein Bottle which is invisible on the interior...sort of like one way matter) and sensorimotive perception on the other (the invisible side is feeling, participation, being). I would call the arithmetic side 'electromagnetism' and 'relativity'. 2. The arithmetic side runs on agreement between numbers - synchronization. The sensorimotive side runs on gaps between agreements. It is already synchronized because is is the vector of orientation (local singularity/monad) for time (change), so it runs on induction. Jumping gaps. Pulling wholes through holes. It's non-comp guesswork, interpretation, and pantomime that changes and evolves. The importance of imitation in learning should strike a chord here. Then, if you identify your little ego with your higher self (which is not usually done in science), you can identify the whole reality as the (internal) thought of God (Arithmetical truth). That's pretty basic, but sure. I think that 'thought' is pretty narrow though. I like 'sense' better because I see thought as a rather recent human development that took off symbiotically with the invention of language and writing. Writing makes one kind of sense, thought another similar one, hearing and seeing, feeling and tasting, knowing and sensing, emotions, etc, all different embodied experiences of order or pattern. I would not limit it to any one of those or even all of those channels. I would not underestimate the power of order to transcend any previous definition of it. That may be what physicists believe that they do, but probably in reality they use an intuitive feel from numbers and experience which they describe and communicate as an identity thesis, numbers, etc. The actual understanding is an artifact of cognition and feeling. Hmm... I can be OK. But here by identity thesis I mean the brain-mind identity thesis? Except the Everettian, most believe that seeing a needle is due to one needle and one brain, and one experience, when comp implies that for one experience there is an infinity of brain, and needle. Comp extends Everett on arithmetic. I would say that seeing the image of a needle may indicate one needle, one eye, one set of visual processing related areas of one brain, and an indeterminate number of potential experiences, depending on how the person feels about the needle, what associations they have, how long they look at the needle, what else is competing for their attention, etc. The same can be true if there is no needle, but just a memory or visualization of a needle. That is the relative needle, and is one 1-p construct. But the real needle emerges from an infinity of 1-p view of an infinity of such relative 3-p views. This extends Everett in arithmetic. To me those are special infinities arising from the exclusion of the input/output of Sense. You don't need to spin off every possible 1p and 3p universe just to be able to perceive a needle. It's very straight forward; in a universe of nothing but two things (physical or ideal), they each can tell that the other exists. It's a primitive of existence. When you scale that up, you get triangulation, where each 1p is informed by the exterior of the other 2p's and is then able to infer it's own existence as the dynamically modulating gap between the other two. When you have that kind of an exponential explosion of information within the social network, you also get a rapid decompensation of sense outside of the network. As the nodes become enmeshed in their mutual overlap and underlap, the enmeshment itself casts a shadow that attenuates sensitivity and identification outside of the shared privacies. This
Re: bruno list
On Aug 20, 3:05 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 8/20/2011 4:04 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: No they don't. The thermostat that's connected to the furnace can modify it's world, who's only attribute is temperature. If it's not connected to a furnace then it can sense temperature, but it can't act on it. No it does act on it. It contracts or expands. That's the trigger that makes the rest of the circuit of the thermostat close and the furnace ignite. Same exact principle as what a rod cell does - it contracts or expands it's membrane potential or whatever and allows the optic nerve to complete a circuit with the brain. Whether or not a retina is connected to a furnace or a metal strip is attached to the optic nerve is irrelevant as to their ability to sense electromagnetic changes within a certain range of frequencies. A furnace or a visual cortex is an interpreter of retina interpreting light or an interpreter of metal strips interpreting heat. Your response is interesting though because you are defining sensation as nonexistent without being tied to a tangible impact on 'the world'. This means that already you are compelled to disqualify all passive experience as less than an action which can be seen from the outside and 'not just internally'. You assume that an HVAC is what makes something a thermostat - function = existence. Right. I don't require that it act on the world at the same moment you consider passive, but that it be able to act on the world after passive consideration. I think that consciousness depends on both perception and on action. But you seem to be saying that action is primary. Things act and then they have a reason for doing so. I'm saying it goes both ways. I can't believe that you want me to accept that eyes can't see but metal can. What about our skin, surely you must give that the same consideration when it contracts into goosebumps as when a strip of metal contracts in size? Sure it's acting in the world - not just internally. To me that's a rather religious or patriarchal approach - which is fine, I just think that it probably precludes any impartial examination of consciousness on it's own merits. From that perspective, there is no significant difference between a philosophical zombie and a person, as long as the zombie fulfills the same actions on 'the world' (meaning the external physical processes outside of our Selves) it *must* be conscious. From that perspective, imagination, dreams, and fiction have no value except when they happen to lead to an improvement in the manufacture of Whiffle balls or hand grenades. I'm glad that the universe doesn't believe that also, or we'd all be some form of insect. What makes you think you aren't? Because human beings, under typical conditions of waking consciousness can easily distinguish between an insect and another human being. What makes you think that question isn't just sophistry? Craigs -- 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: Dennett, zombie and zimbo
On 8/20/2011 6:10 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Aug 20, 8:02 am, Evgenii Rudnyiuse...@rudnyi.ru wrote: Now, Dennett would be the first to say that it just 'seems' to me that I have a phenomenology but that is the point isn't it? If it seems to me then I have it. How can anyone think otherwise?? Exactly. The fact that we feel is not contingent upon any external validation of the content of those feelings. Subjective phenomenology is a legitimate and irreducibly primitive part of the universe at the same level as probability or cause and effect. Since it's ontological advantage is private orientation, it is actually where subjectivity underlaps externality that is significant and signifying...the extent to which interior fiction has the potential to diverge from objective fact is where teleology derives it's power, and therefore a great improvement over a zombie universe of pure logical physics. Craig And Dennett is a zimbo. James Randi too. They are the same zimbo. Can you quote anything to that effect. In Dennett's actual writing, as opposed to what other people have said, he says zombies are preposterous. I can’t see why a belief in zombies isn’t simply ridiculous, and I’m going to go on comparing zombies to epiphenomenal gremlins and other such prepostera until some philosopher mounts a proper defence, showing that the belief in the possibility of zombies is somehow better supported than these other cases. Brent -- 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.
