Colin >> like the functionality of a scientist without involving ALL the functionality (especially qualia) of a scientist must be based >> on assumptions - assumptions I do not make.
Russel > I gave a counter example, that of biological evolution. Either you should demonstrate why you think biological evolution is uncreative, or why it is conscious. Colin You have proven my point again. It is not a counterexample at all. These two "either-or" options are rife with assumption and innappropriately contra-posed. The biggest? = Define the context/semantics of 'creative'. Options: #1 The biosphere is a massive localised collection of molecular ratchet motors pumped infinitesimal increment by infinitesimal increment against the 2nd law of thermodynamics upon the arrival of each photon from the sun. If the novelty (new levels nested organisational complexity) expressed in that collection/process can be called an act of creativity...fine...so what? I could call it an act of 'gronkativity' and it would not alter the facts of the matter. I don't even have to mention the word consciousness. The organisational complexity thus contrived may or may not include physics that makes some of it (like humans) conscious. I could imagine a biosphere just as complex (quaternary, 100ernary/etc structure) but devoid of all the physics involved in (human) consciousness and the behavioural complexity contingent on that fact. That alternate biosphere's complexity would simply have no witnesses built into it and would have certain state trajectories ruled out in favour of others. This alternate biosphere would have lots of causality and no observation (in the sense that the causality is involved in construction of a phenomenal field of the human/qualia kind is completely absent). This blind biosphere is all 'observation' O(.) functions of the Nils Baas kind that is completely disconnected from consciousness or the human faculty for observation made of it. Making any statement about the consciousess of a biosphere is meaningless until you know what the physics is in humans...only then are we entitled to assess the consciousness or otherwise of the biosphere as a whole or what, if any' aspects of the word creative (which , BTW was invented by consciousness!) can be ascribed to it.....the same argument applies to a computer, for that matter. Until then I suggest we don't bother. #2 Creativity in humans = the act of being WRONG about something = the essence of imagining (using the faculty of consciousness - the qualia of internal imagery of all kinds) hitherto unseen states of affairs in the natural world around us that do not currently exist (such as the structure of a new scientific law or a sculture of a hitherto unseen shape)..... this has nothing to do with the #1 collection of ratchet motors....except insofar as the process doing it is implemented inside it, with it (inside the brain of a human made of the ratchet motors). That's how you unpack this discussion. cheers colin hales BTW thanks.....I now have the BAAS paper on .PDF Baas, N. A. (1994) Emergence, Hierarchies, and Hyperstructures. In C. G. Langton (ed.). Artificial life III : proceedings of the Workshop on Artificial Life, held June 1992 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. I'll send it over... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---