RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-02-06 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Tom Caylor writes: On Jan 31, 10:33 am, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. But in that case your question is just half of the question, Why do people have values? If you have values then that mean some things will be good and some will be bad - a weed is just a flower in a place you

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-02-06 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Tom Caylor writes: Brent Meeker It does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will matter. --- Thomas Nagel We might like to believe Nagel, but it isn't true. Tom That is, it isn't true that in a million years nothing we do now will matter.Why do you say

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-02-06 Thread Brent Meeker
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes: Brent Meeker It does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will matter. --- Thomas Nagel We might like to believe Nagel, but it isn't true. Tom That is, it isn't true that in a million

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-02-05 Thread Tom Caylor
On Jan 31, 10:33 am, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. But in that case your question is just half of the question, Why do people have values? If you have values then that mean some things will be good and some will be bad - a weed is just a flower in a place you don't want it.

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-02-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Tom Caylor writes: On Jan 31, 10:33 am, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. But in that case your question is just half of the question, Why do people have values? If you have values then that mean some things will be good and some will be bad - a weed is just a flower in a place

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-21 Thread John Mikes
Dear Bruno, I read with joy your long and detailed 'teaching' reply (Hungarian slogan: like a mother to her imbecil child) and understood a lot (or so I think). I am not entusiastic about a sign-language (gesticulated or written) instead of words, because I did not familiarize myself into its

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-19 Thread Bruno Marchal
Dear John, Le 17-janv.-07, à 18:11, John M a écrit : Dear Bruno, may I ask you to spell out your B and D? in your: Let D = the proposition God exists, ~ = NOT, B = believes. Where I think I cannot substitute your ~ for the =NOT  - or, if the entire line is meaning ONE idea, that B believes

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-17 Thread John M
Dear Bruno, may I ask you to spell out your B and D? in your: Let D = the proposition God exists, ~ = NOT, B = believes. Where I think I cannot substitute your ~ for the =NOT - or, if the entire line is meaning ONE idea, that B believes both the affirmative and the negatory. Also: the

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-16 Thread Brent Meeker
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or semantics for a computer telling us

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-16 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Brent Meeker writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-14 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Brent Meeker writes: I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or semantics for a computer telling us what should count as a 1 or

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-13 Thread John M
. I skip the rest of the 'rock-physics'. Regards John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 12:24 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John Mikes writes

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-13 Thread John M
sensitivity (including response maybe) to information (changes?) from the ambience. (Not a Shannon-type info). John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 9:53 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-13 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Brent Meeker writes: I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or semantics for a computer telling us what should count as a 1 or a 0,

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-13 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:12:52 -0500 Stathis: I will not go that far, nor draw 'magnificent' conclusion about conscious rocks (I am not talking about the unconscious hysteria

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-13 Thread Brent Meeker
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or semantics for a computer telling us

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-12 Thread John Mikes
On 1/10/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: Regarding consciousness being generated by physical activity, would it help if I said that if a conventional computer is conscious, then, to be consistent, a rock would also have to be conscious? JM:

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-12 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
John Mikes writes: Regarding consciousness being generated by physical activity, would it help if I said that if a conventional computer is conscious, then, to be consistent, a rock would also have to be conscious? JM: Bruno: A rock will not read an article in the Figaro, but that is not

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-12 Thread Brent Meeker
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John Mikes writes: Regarding consciousness being generated by physical activity, would it help if I said that if a conventional computer is conscious, then, to be consistent, a rock would also have to be conscious? JM: Bruno: A rock will not read an

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-10 Thread Bruno Marchal
Stathis, I will ask you to be patient until next wednesday because I am busy right now. I think we agree on many things, and this is an opportunity to search where exactly we diverge, if we diverge. For example I disagree with the expression brain are conscious, but I am read you more

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-10 Thread John M
, January 07, 2007 10:46 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life John, My email pgm sometimes (as now) balks at quote/copying material from emails I'm replying to. So I'll do as best to reply without having your exact words to refer to. re Bruno's inquiring about how I link changes

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-10 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: I will ask you to be patient until next wednesday because I am busy right now. I think we agree on many things, and this is an opportunity to search where exactly we diverge, if we diverge. For example I disagree with the expression brain are conscious, but I am

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Mark Peaty writes: SP: 'Is there anything about how you are feeling to day that makes you sure that aliens didn't come during the night and replace your body with an exact copy? Because that is basically what happens naturally anyway, although it isn't aliens and it takes months rather

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 07-janv.-07, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. The argument does not depend at all

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Bruno Marchal
Hi James, Le 08-janv.-07, à 02:04, James N Rose a écrit : Bruno, Please be patient for my reply to your question. I'll compose an answer soon on inertia and change of inertia and how I reached the notion of assigning that as the essential-primitive of Consciousness. Take your time. I am

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 07-janv.-07, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. The

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 08-janv.-07, à 14:27, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: Le 07-janv.-07, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 07-janv.-07, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. The

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-08 Thread Brent Meeker
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 07-janv.-07, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. The argument

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
John Mikes writes: Friends: Siding with Mark (almost?G) just to a 'wider' view of mentality than implied by physicalistic - physiologistic - even maybe comp-related frameworks, indicating the domains we did not even discovered, but love to disregard. Upon Marks post --- Stathis Papaioannou

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Mark Peaty writes: SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out, technical difficulty is not an

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Mark Peaty
Brent: 'But *your* infinity is just *really big*. There are only a finite number of atoms in a person and they have only a finite number of relations. So how can an exact copy require infinite resources? ' MP: Well yes, perhaps there are only a finite number of relationships, but these

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Brent Meeker
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Mark Peaty writes: SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out,

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: 'The brain manages to maintain identity from moment to moment without perfect copying or infinite computing power... ' MP: True, up to a point, but I want to quibble about that later [maybe below, maybe in another posting]. And upon more, [and more, and more,] mature reflection I can see

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread João Silva
Hi, I'm new to this list. Sorry for coming into the conversation uninvited, but I would like to post some comments on this :) Hope you don't mind. Brent Meeker wrote: And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread John M
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:45 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life (MP)... because infinity is infinity. But *your* infinity is just *really big*. There are only a finite number of atoms

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread John M
appreciate the excerpt from your preceding post copied below your post. Have a good day, my friend John - Original Message - From: James N Rose To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 3:17 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life John, You made

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
João Silva writes: Hi, I'm new to this list. Sorry for coming into the conversation uninvited, but I would like to post some comments on this :) Hope you don't mind. Welcome to the list. Everyone is free to barge into every discussion. Brent Meeker wrote: And does it even have to be

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Mark Peaty writes (in part): So back to the question: can I be copied? Answer: More or less yes. Next question: Is the edition of me that gets copied then flushed away committing suicide? Answer: Yes Next question: If the copying did not destroy the original of me then who is the new

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread James N Rose
Bruno, Please be patient for my reply to your question. I'll compose an answer soon on inertia and change of inertia and how I reached the notion of assigning that as the essential-primitive of Consciousness. James --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Brent Meeker
João Silva wrote: Hi, I'm new to this list. Sorry for coming into the conversation uninvited, but I would like to post some comments on this :) Hope you don't mind. Brent Meeker wrote: And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: 'Is there anything about how you are feeling to day that makes you sure that aliens didn't come during the night and replace your body with an exact copy? Because that is basically what happens naturally anyway, although it isn't aliens and it takes months rather than overnight: almost

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-07 Thread James N Rose
John, My email pgm sometimes (as now) balks at quote/copying material from emails I'm replying to. So I'll do as best to reply without having your exact words to refer to. re Bruno's inquiring about how I link changes of inertia to Csness, I'll do that in a few days. re Gendankens - I

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-06 Thread John M
Friends: Siding with Mark (almost?G) just to a 'wider' view of mentality than implied by physicalistic - physiologistic - even maybe comp-related frameworks, indicating the domains we did not even discovered, but love to disregard. Upon Marks post --- Stathis Papaioannou (wroteamong more):

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-06 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out, technical difficulty is not an issue in thought

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-06 Thread Brent Meeker
Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out, technical difficulty is not an

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread James N Rose
John, You made excellent points, which I'm happy to reply to .. John M wrote: --- James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JR: ... Make it easier -- a coma patient, inert for decades, re-wakes alone in a room, registers its situation and in an instant - dies. Would that moment qualify

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 05-janv.-07, à 05:55, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno: If consciousness supervenes on all physical processes a case can be made that matter could be relevant for consciousness. (I see Peter Jones makes a similar remark). Stathis: Except that you could say the same for the Maudlin

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 04-janv.-07, à 16:37, James N Rose a écrit : It is -not- complex or human consciousness -- which emerges later. But it is the primal foundation-presence and qualia on which emerged forms of consciousness rely - in order for those complex forms to exist, as they do. I agree. (if I

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 04-janv.-07, à 22:51, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I am not sure what Hans Moravec's physical mechanism would be for the 'teddy bear' example of panpsychism? I have read Mind Children and Robot thoroughly, am cluless, regarding why Moravec should agree with Spinoza. Me too. Bruno

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Mark Peaty
Brent: 'However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all, as Stathis points out,

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Brent Meeker
Mark Peaty wrote: Brent: 'However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all, as

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: Bruno: If consciousness supervenes on all physical processes a case can be made that matter could be relevant for consciousness. (I see Peter Jones makes a similar remark). Stathis: Except that you could say the same for the Maudlin example, in which it is

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Mark Peaty writes: Brent: 'However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all, as

Re: The Meaning of Life - COMP and Circumstance

2007-01-05 Thread Mark Peaty
Thanks for this Peter: I am still chewing on this, with a view to ultimate digestion. I do get a certain kind of Angels and pinheads impression about some of it though. Hopefully that is just an illusion! :-) Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-05 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: 'So given months or years, you really are like a car in which every single component has been replaced, the only remaining property of the original car being the design' MP: Yes, indeed. For the word design here, I prefer to use 'structure', with the proviso that the structure/s we are

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread 1Z
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Although you have clearly stated that the two ideas - consciousness supervening on all physical processes and consciousness supervening on no physical process - are completely different I think they are related

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread 1Z
1Z wrote: Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 03-janv.-07, à 16:36, Stathis Papaioannou wrote (in more than one posts) : Maudlin starts off with the assumption that a recording being conscious is obviously absurd, hence the need for the conscious machine to handle counterfactuals. If it were not for this assumption then there

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Although you have clearly stated that the two ideas - consciousness supervening on all physical processes and consciousness supervening on no physical process - are completely

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread James N Rose
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-janv.-07, à 16:36, Stathis Papaioannou wrote (in more than one posts) : Maudlin starts off with the assumption that a recording being conscious is obviously absurd, hence the need for the conscious machine to handle counterfactuals. If it were not for this

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread Mark Peaty
Brent: 'Remember that Bruno is a logician.' MP: :-) Yes, this much is easy to infer. The full scope of what this might MEAN however, is little short of terrifying ... ;-) MP: Infinity, infinite, infinitely big or small; these are challenging concepts at the best of times and made very

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread Brent Meeker
Mark Peaty wrote: Brent: 'Remember that Bruno is a logician.' MP: :-) Yes, this much is easy to infer. The full scope of what this might MEAN however, is little short of terrifying ... ;-) MP: Infinity, infinite, infinitely big or small; these are challenging concepts at the best of times

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread 1Z
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Although you have clearly stated that the two ideas - consciousness supervening on all physical processes and consciousness supervening on no

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread John M
--- James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-janv.-07, à 16:36, Stathis Papaioannou wrote (in more than one posts) : Maudlin starts off with the assumption that a recording being conscious is obviously absurd, hence the need for the conscious machine to

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread Spudboy100
I am not sure what Hans Moravec's physical mechanism would be for the 'teddy bear' example of panpsychism? I have read Mind Children and Robot thoroughly, am cluless, regarding why Moravec should agree with Spinoza. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-04 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 03-janv.-07, à 16:36, Stathis Papaioannou wrote (in more than one posts) : Maudlin starts off with the assumption that a recording being conscious is obviously absurd, hence the need for the conscious machine to handle counterfactuals. If it were not for

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 02-janv.-07, à 13:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Mark Peaty writes: SP: ' In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 03-janv.-07, à 03:46, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: It gets cumbersome to qualify everything with given the appearance of a physical world. As I have said before, I am not entirely convinced that comp is true, Nor am I. (Remind that no machine can, from its

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 03-janv.-07, à 04:00, Mark Peaty a écrit : SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 03-janv.-07, à 05:24, Brent Meeker wrote (to Mark Peaty) Remember that Bruno is a logician. When he writes infinite he really means infinite - not really, really big as physicists do. Almost all numbers are bigger than 10^120, which is the biggest number that appears in physics (and

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: which invokes an argument discovered by Bruno and Tim Maudlin demonstrating that there is a problem with the theory that the mental supervenes on the physical. It seems that to be consistent you have to allow either that any computation, including the supposedly

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 03-janv.-07, à 06:39, Mark Peaty a écrit : BM: ' (= Bruno Marchal, not Brent Meeker) OK, except I don't see what you mean by on a number basis. We know that number have a lot of quantitative interesting relationships, but after Godel, Solovay etc.. we do know that numbers have

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: 'Recall that ordinary life does not involve anything like perfect copying of your brain from moment to moment. Thousands of neurons are dying all the time and you don't even notice, and it is possible to infarct a substantial proportion of your brain and finish up with just a bit of a

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread 1Z
Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial intelligence/consciousness' What

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread 1Z
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Although you have clearly stated that the two ideas - consciousness supervening on all physical processes and consciousness supervening on no physical process - are completely different I think they are related in that in both cases matter is irrelevant to

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Brent Meeker
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-janv.-07, à 05:24, Brent Meeker wrote (to Mark Peaty) Remember that Bruno is a logician. When he writes infinite he really means infinite - not really, really big as physicists do. Almost all numbers are bigger than 10^120, which is the biggest number that

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Brent Meeker
Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'You don't actually have to emulate the entire universe, just enough to fool its inhabitants. For example, you don't need to emulate the appearance of a snowflake in the Andromeda galaxy except in the unlikely event that someone went to have a look at it.' MP: I think

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Peter Jones writes: SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial intelligence/consciousness'

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Mark Peaty
For my benefit, could you flesh that out in plain English please? Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ 1Z wrote: Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it,

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-03 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Although you have clearly stated that the two ideas - consciousness supervening on all physical processes and consciousness supervening on no physical process - are completely different I think they are related in that in both cases matter

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 02-janv.-07, à 08:14, Mark Peaty a écrit : SP: ' In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that way: if someone honestly

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Mark Peaty writes: SP: ' In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that way: if someone honestly believed that he knew what was

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 02-janv.-07, à 04:20, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: Le 31-déc.-06, à 04:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit (to Tom Caylor): Of course: questions of personal meaning are not scientific questions. Physics may show you how to build a nuclear bomb, but it won't tell

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: It gets cumbersome to qualify everything with given the appearance of a physical world. As I have said before, I am not entirely convinced that comp is true, Nor am I. (Remind that no machine can, from its first person point of view, be entirely convinced that

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial intelligence/consciousness' That is what I thought

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Brent Meeker
Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial intelligence/consciousness' That

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-02 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Mark Peaty writes: SP: 'using the term comp as short for computationalism as something picked up from Bruno. On the face of it, computationalism seems quite sensible: the best theory of consciousness and the most promising candidate for producing artificial intelligence/consciousness' That

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-01 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 30-déc.-06, à 22:32, Tom Caylor a écrit : snip ... On the other hand, I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-01 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi John: One example of what I am saying would be the way we drill holes in the earth and pump out oil and oxidize it and the resulting energy flux soon dissipates, can do little more useful work, and radiates into space. If the oil was left in place it could be many millions of years

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-01 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 31-déc.-06, à 04:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit (to Tom Caylor): Of course: questions of personal meaning are not scientific questions. Physics may show you how to build a nuclear bomb, but it won't tell you whether you should use it. But Physics, per se, is not supposed to answer

RE: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-01 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Bruno Marchal writes: Le 31-déc.-06, à 04:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit (to Tom Caylor): Of course: questions of personal meaning are not scientific questions. Physics may show you how to build a nuclear bomb, but it won't tell you whether you should use it. But Physics, per se, is

Re: The Meaning of Life

2007-01-01 Thread Mark Peaty
SP: ' In the end, what is right is an irreducible personal belief, which you can try to change by appeal to emotions or by example, but not by appeal to logic or empirical facts. And in fact I feel much safer that way: if someone honestly believed that he knew what was right as surely as he

Re: The Meaning of Life

2006-12-31 Thread John M
'inanimate'). John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 10:59 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life Tom Caylor writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes (quoting Bruno Marchal

Re: The Meaning of Life

2006-12-31 Thread Hal Ruhl
One way to look at life is from the point of view of energy hang-up barriers - those various facts about the structure of our universe that slow the dissipation of useful energy concentrations. Life drills holes in these barriers and thus is on the fastest system path to maximum entropy.

Re: The Meaning of Life

2006-12-31 Thread John M
Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life One way to look at life is from the point of view of energy hang-up barriers - those various facts about the structure of our universe that slow the dissipation of useful energy concentrations. Life drills holes in these barriers and thus

Re: The Meaning of Life

2006-12-30 Thread Brent Meeker
Tom Caylor wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes (quoting Bruno Marchal): [TC] My whole argument is that without it our hope eventually runs out and we are left with despair, unless we lie to ourselves against the absence of hope. [BM] Here Stathis already give a

Re: The Meaning of Life

2006-12-30 Thread Brent Meeker
Tom Caylor wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes (quoting Bruno Marchal): [TC] My whole argument is that without it our hope eventually runs out and we are left with despair, unless we lie to ourselves against the absence of hope. [BM] Here Stathis already give a

RE: The Meaning of Life

2006-12-30 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Tom Caylor writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes (quoting Bruno Marchal): [TC] My whole argument is that without it our hope eventually runs out and we are left with despair, unless we lie to ourselves against the absence of hope. [BM] Here Stathis already

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