Matt Mahoney wrote:
--- On Sat, 11/15/08, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Matt Mahoney wrote:
--- On Sat, 11/15/08, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
This is equivalent to your prediction #2 where connecting the
output of neurons that respond to the sound of a cello to the
input of neurons that respond to red would cause a cello to
sound red. We should expect the effect to be temporary.
I'm not sure how this demonstrates consciousness. How do you
test that the subject actually experiences redness at the
sound of a cello, rather than just behaving as if
experiencing redness, for example, claiming to hear red?
You misunderstand the experiment in a very intersting way!
This experiment has to be done on the *skeptic* herself!
The prediction is that if *you* get your brain rewired, *you*
will experience this.
How do you know what I experience, as opposed to what I claim to
experience?
That is exactly the question you started with, so you
haven't gotten anywhere. I don't need proof that I experience
things. I already have that belief programmed into my brain.
Huh?
Now what are we talking about... I am confused: I was talking
about proving my prediction. I simply replied to your doubt about
whether a "subject" woudl be experiencing the predicted effects, or
just producing language consistent with it. I gave you a solution
by pointing out that anyone who had an interest in the prediction
could themselves join in and be a subject. That seemed to answer
your original question.
You are confusing truth and belief. I am not asking you to make me
believe that consciousness (that which distinguishes you from a
philosophical zombie) exists. I already believe that. I am asking you
to prove it. You haven't done that. I don't believe you can prove the
existence of anything that is both detectable and not detectable.
You are stuck in Level 0.
I showed something a great deal more sophisticated. In fact, I
explicitly agreed with you on a Level 0 version of what you just said:
I actually said in the paper that I (and anyone else) cannot explain
these phenomena qua the (Level 0) things that they appear to be.
But I went far beyond that: I explained why people have difficulty
defining these terms, and I explained a self-consistent understanding of
the nature of consciousness that involves it being classified as a novel
type of thing.
You cannot define in properly.
I can explain why you cannot define in properly.
I can both define and explain it, and part of that explanation is that
the very nature of "explanation" is bound up in the solution.
But instead of understanding that the nature of "explanation" has to
change to deal with the problem, you remain stuck with the old, broken
idea of explanation, and keep trying to beat the argument with it!
Richard Loosemore
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription:
https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
