On 2/10/2012 7:25 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


2012/2/10 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com <mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com>>

    On Feb 10, 4:06 am, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com
    <mailto:allco...@gmail.com>> wrote:
    > 2012/2/9 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com
    <mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com>>
    >
    > > On Feb 9, 9:49 am, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com
    <mailto:allco...@gmail.com>> wrote:
    > > > 2012/2/9 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com
    <mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com>>
    >
    > > > > > > How does a gear or lever have an opinion?
    >
    > > > > > The problems with gears and levers is dumbness.
    >
    > > > > Does putting a billion gears and levers together in an
    arrangement
    > > > > make them less dumb? Does it start having opinions at some
    point?
    >
    > > > Does putting a billions neurons together in an arrangement
    make them less
    > > > dumb ? Does it start having opinions at some point ?
    >
    > > No, because neurons are living organisms in the first place, not
    > > gears.
    >
    > At which point does it start having an opinions ?

At every point when it is alive.

That's not true, does a single neuron has an opinion ? two ? a thousand ?

We may not call them opinions

Don't switch subject.

    because
    we use that word to refer to an entire human being's experience, but
    the point is that being a living cell makes it capable of having
different capacities than it does as a dead cell.

Yes and so what ? a dead cell *does not* behave like a living cell, that's enough.

    When it is dead,
    there is no biological sense going on, only chemical detection-
    reaction, which is time reversible. Biological sense isn't time
    reversible.

    > Why simulated neurons
    > couldn't have opinions at that same point ? Vitalism ?

No, because there is no such thing as absolute simulation,

There is no need for an "absolute" simulation... what do you mean by "absolute" ?

    there is
    only imitation. Simulation is an imitation


no, simulation is not imitation.

    designed to invite us to
    mistake it for genuine - which is adequate for things we don't care
    about much, but awareness cannot be a mistake. It is the absolute
    primary orientation, so it cannot ever be substituted. If you make
    synthetic neurons which are very close to natural neurons on every
    level, then you have a better chance of coming close enough that the
    resulting organism is very similar to the original. A simulation which
    is not made of something that forms a cell by itself (an actual cell,
    not a virtual sculpture of a cell) probably has no possibility of
    graduating from time reversible detection-reaction to other categories
    of sense, feeling, awareness, perception, and consciousness, just as a
    CGI picture


A CGI picture *is a picture* not a simulation.

    of a neuron has no chance of producing milliliters of
    actual serotonin, acetylcholine, glutamate,etc.


Is it needed for consciousness ? why ?


    Craig

Hi,

How would your reasoning work for a virus? Is it "alive"? I think that the notion of "being alive" is not a property of the parts but of the whole.

Onward!

Stephen

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