On 20 May 2011, at 19:44, meekerdb wrote:
On 5/20/2011 3:54 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 18 May 2011, at 18:54, meekerdb wrote:
On 5/18/2011 9:21 AM, Stephen Paul King wrote:
Hi Brent,
Interesting! If we follow this idea, that memory is not
necessary for consciousness, then consciousness does not require
a persistent structure to supervene upon. No?
Onward!
Stephen
I don't see how that follows.
Me too. Consciousness requires logically the entire arithmetical
reality, for example (with mechanism). Without 2+2=4, there is no
consciousness, nor computation, nor matter.
"Require" in what sense: logical, nomological,...? We know that a
blow to the head can interrupt consciousness
We don't know that. With comp nothing interrupt consciousness.
I have experienced it, a gap in my consciousness. Of course you may
say it is only a gap in my memory of consciousness, but a loss of
memory can be induced in by drugs that do not cause one to be
unresponsive at the time which is not remembered. This tells me
that being unconscious is more that just not remembering.
and erase memories.
That can indeed happens locally and relatively. And that can give
the feeling of having been unconscious.
Bruno
But consciousness is a matter of having feelings. Why credit
feelings of being conscious but not those of having been uncouscious.
But those are always extrapolations. The feeling of being conscious in
the present is undoubtable. The feeling of being unconscious in the
present is contradictory.
This goes back to the question of the role of memories and whether
memory is essential to consciousness. You may hypothesize that
nothing interrupts consciousness,
I think it is a consequence of mechanism. This is something already
defended by Descartes. With some training I think it is not so
difficult to realize that we are conscious in all the phases of sleep,
but we forget it very easily.
or make it true by a definition that denies physical (3rd person)
time.
Why? Only absolute 3rd person time is denied. But this is common among
physicists too, and almost obvious in the mechanist frame.
But this strikes me as trying to save a theory by redefining words.
All words need to be redefine in new theories.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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