Flammarion wrote: > > > On 28 Aug, 02:27, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: >> Flammarion wrote: >> >>> On 21 Aug, 21:01, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: >>>> Flammarion wrote: >>>>> Do you think that if you scanned my brain right down to the atomic >>>>> level, >>>>> you still wouldn't have captured all the information? >>>> That's an interesting question and one that I think relates to the >>>> importance of context. A scan of your brain would capture all the >>>> information in the Shannon/Boltzman sense, i.e. it would determine which >>>> of the possible configurations and processes were realized. However, >>>> those concerned about the "hard problem", will point out that this >>>> misses the fact that the information represents or "means" something. >>>> To know the meaning of the information would require knowledge of the >>>> world in which the brain acts and perceives, including a lot of >>>> evolutionary history. Image scanning the brain of an alien found in a >>>> crash at Roswell. Without knowledge of how he acts and the evolutionary >>>> history of his species it would be essentially impossible to guess the >>>> meaning of the patterns in his brain. My point is that it is not just >>>> computation that is consciousness or cognition, but computation with >>>> meaning, which means within a certain context of action. >>> But figuring out stored sensory information should be about the >>> easiest part of the task. If you can trace a pathway from a red >>> sensor to a storage unit, the information in the unit has to mean >>> "this is red". >>> What is hard about the Hard Problem is *not* interpretation or >>> context. >> I'm not so sure about that - maybe "more is different" applies. "This >> is red" is really a summary, an abstraction, of what the red sensor >> firing means to the alien. To a human it's the color of blood and has >> connotations of violence, excitement, danger. To an alien with green >> blood... from a planet with red seas...? If you knew all the >> associations built up over a lifetime of memories and many lifetimes >> of evolution maybe the 'hard problem' would dissolve. > > Not at all. That theory predicts that some entirely novel sensation-- > one which > has not built > up any associations --should be easy to describe. But it isn;t. And in > fact > describing associations is a lot easier than describing the core > phenomenal feel.
Does "that theory" refer to more-is-different? ISTM that more-is-different implies exactly what you point out. It's easier to describe a sensation that has lots of associations because describe it in terms of the associations; whereas a completely novel sensation is impossible describe. Brent --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
