Hi John Clark Pascal said that the heart knows things of which the mind knows not.
Consciousness is a faraway land of which we know nothing, except that we can experience things. We can describe our experiences but cannot share them directly or prove them. The same is true of religion. The experience of religion is called faith, what we can share is called beliefs. So we can truly know things about religion that we can only partly explain or prove. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/9/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: John Clark Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-08, 11:42:01 Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment On Fri, Oct 5, 2012? Craig Weinberg wrote: >> We know with absolute certainty that the laws of physics in this universe >> allow for the creation of consciousness, we may not know how they do it but >> we know for a fact that it can be done. > Absolutely not. We know no such thing. We do unless we abandon reason and pretend that the non answers that religion provides actually explain something, or that your Fart Philosophy explains something when it says that consciousness exists because consciousness exists. > Computers which have been programmed thus far don't have conscious > experiences. Would you agree that is a fact? No, I most certainly do NOT agree that it is a fact that computers are not conscious, nor is it a fact that Craig Weinberg has conscious experiences; it is only a fact that sometimes both behave intelligently. ?> I understand that the capacity to have a conscious experience is inversely proportionate to the capacity fro that experience to be controlled from the outside. So the more stimulation you get through your senses of the outside environment the less conscious you become. Huh? ? >> I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a >> Evolutionary advantage > Which fact is that? That intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage. Having difficulty with your reading comprehension?? > Which intelligent behavior do you know that you can be certain exists without > any subjective experience associated with it? I am aware of no such behavior. The only intelligent behavior I know with certainty that is always associated with subjective experience is my own. But I know with certainty there are 2 possibilities: 1) Intelligent behavior is always associated with subjective experience, if so then if a computer beats you at any intellectual pursuit then it has a subjective experience, assuming of course that you yourself are intelligent. And I'll let you pick the particular intellectual pursuit for the contest. 2) Intelligent behavior is NOT associated with subjective experience, in which case there is no reason for Evolution to produce consciousness and I have no explanation for why I am here, and I have reason to believe that I am the only conscious being in the universe. >> I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITH consciousness confers no >> additional Evolutionary advantage (and if you disagree with that point then >> you must believe that the Turing Test works for consciousness too and not >> just intelligence). > Yet you think that consciousness must have evolved. Yes. > No contradiction there? No contradiction there if consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence, a massive? contradiction if it is not; so massive that human beings could not be conscious, and yet I am, and perhaps you are too. > You think that every behavior in biology exists purely because of evolution Yes. ?> except consciousness, which you have no explanation for My explanation is that intelligence produces consciousness, I don't know exactly how but if Evolution is true then there is a proof that it does. ? >> I know for a fact that Evolution DID produce consciousness at least once, >> therefore the only conclusion is that consciousness is a byproduct of >> intelligence. > A byproduct that does what??? A byproduct that produces consciousness. Having difficulty with your reading comprehension?? > > who's purpose do you expect Adenine and Thymine to serve? > The purpose of their attraction to each other. That's nice, but I repeat, who's purpose do you expect Adenine and Thymine to serve? ? > Where do you think your intelligence to know this comes from? Surely it is > the result in large part of Adenine and Thymine's contribution to the > intelligence of DNA. If everything (except for some reason computers!) is intelligent, if even simple molecules are intelligent then the word has no meaning and is equivalent to nothing is intelligent or everything is klogknee or nothing is klogknee. >>>> Robots are something? >>>? No, they aren't something. >> That is just a little too silly to argue. > You think that a picture of a pipe is a pipe, so you think that a machine > made of things is also a thing. You are incorrect. I think that a picture of a pipe is something, you don't and you are not just incorrect you are silly. > I don't experience anything other than awareness So you say. However you won't believe that a computer is conscious regardless of how brilliantly it behaves or how vehemently it insists that it is, so why should I believe you when you claim to be conscious? > space intentionally left blank for the supercomputers of the future to come > back in time with their super conscious intelligence and join the > conversation I don't see the point of that, no matter what they did no matter how brilliantly or nobly they conversed you'd still insist they were not conscious because you think that the elements in their brain are more important than the content of their character. I disagree. >> Evolution requires something that can reproduce itself, there is no >> universally agreed on definition of "life" so if you want to say that >> viruses and RNA strings and crystals and clay patterns and Von Neumann >> Machines are alive I won't argue with you and will agree that Evolution >> requires that something be alive to get started. > Fair enough. Now all you have to do is see that something can't reproduce > 'itself' unless there is some kind of awareness That is a impossible task because I have no way of knowing if anything is aware or not? except for the case of myself, I can only detect intelligent behavior. ? > which discerns the difference between that and 'not-itself'. Oil in water can detect self from not-self, but if you start to insist that a oil drop is conscious but supercomputers are not then we're entering the silly zone again. ? 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. 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