--- 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 handle counterfactuals.
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 for 'conscioueness'?
JM:
and how would WE know about 'that moment'? does the
coma-patient push a button to register? If there is a
"conscious machine" (human or humanoid?) he is not
alone. So the 'gedankenexperiment' (as all of this
kind do) fails. Jamie left out HIS version of Ccness,
to better understand his points. (E. g.:
(BM):
>
> Hans Moravec has defended in this list indeed the
idea that even a
> teddy bear is conscious.
JR:
I put it to the list that there are several factors
that are implicit
and explicit to the notion of consciousness .. which
we humans mis-identify
and mis-weight. They involve more than the human
arrogance that 'our'
sentience is the gauge to measure any/all
other-sentience against.
JM:
Earlier, when I felt an obligation to identify what
"I" am talking about when I say: Consciousness(?) I
generalized the concept to ANY sensitivity in ANY
aspect, (as acknowledgement (and?) response to (any)
information (meaning any difference that transpires) -
so Hans Morawetz's teddy bear can indeed have
'consciousness' . I called that a universal
(pan-)sensitivity to escape 'psycho' as in
'panpsychic'.
Jamie continues about his coma-experiment:
The questions arise .. could a true 'sentience' have
existed in that brief
span of time? I.e, "what is the shortest time span
of sentient (self)other
awareness necessary, to "qualify" for consciousness?
JM:
after the excellent extension of the term from human
udeational restrictions Jamie falls back into physics
of measurable scales. I allow timeless fulgurations,
but cannot condone the restricted content of simply
'awareness' (except for the anestesiologists, who
indeed include into the term an observed response.
I find the simulacron-pair of consciousness and life
'close', at least none of them is identified in a
widely acceptable content (callable: meaning).
(Hal Ruhl was the only lister who responded lately to
my question about 'what do we look at (think of) when
we say "life", (I owe him a thankful response,) all
others in dozens of posts satisfied themselves with
the 'meaning' discussion without identifying what we
should relate those 'meanings' to.
JR:
Whether human-or-not, 'situational awareness',
becomes a parameter for consciousness, as well.
---(Amen, for one aspect of it)---
-time
-memory/continuity
-reactive/interactive capacity
... etc.
not just in human terms, but allowed in a spectrum
of extent,
from just-greater-than-zero to some full-functional
(for that
system) capacity.
When you take the raw parameters criteria, and
shrink them
down to their minimalist extents -- so that all the
BASIC
CONDITIONS of 'sentience' are met/present - whether
for a
femto-second or 2 days or a billion years; whether
capable
of acting-on-awareness or not, or, only capable of
self-registry
of received-information; and so on .. we reach a
point in
the existential scenario when 'computation' falls
away as being
'too complex' in the conditions-spectrum.
What we reach in this paring-away scenario - are
qualia of
existence necessary to meet MINIMALISTS conditions
for
sentience-of-some-sort. Which would not have to be:
sentience-of-OUR-sort.
In the final existential analysis for 'what is
sentience/
consciousness' - it become the smallest, shortest
contingient
situation for an-aspect OF existence to REGISTER
that some
Batesian "difference that makes a difference" -- is
co-present.
JM:
Is "sentience" a standing alone phenomenon? IMO it
requires a chain of processing response-continuation
to qualify as sentience. The impact of a photon is not
(yet) sentience. And the famous Bateson phrase, due to
a thinking Brit, is more than I need, because a stored
(acknowledged) difference may not result in a 'making'
of additional difference (e.g. memory) and yet it
qualifies for information. Storage may be sort of a
response without 'making' a difference.
JR:
In the final existential analysis of primary qualia
of the
universe, I preffered in 1996 that the most
FUNDAMENTAL
dynamic change in this universe is some/any CHANGE
OF INERTIA
from a fixed sameness.
This puts the formative, functional, primal
qualiatative aspect
of sentience/consciousness right in the very fabric
of the cosmos.
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.
Food for thought, ladies and gentlemen, food for
thought.
Jamie Rose
Ceptual Institute
4 Jan 2007
John Mikes
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