On Apr 3, 3:20 am, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Apr 2, 8:06 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > From blindsight, synesthesia, and anosognosia we know that particular > > > qualia are not inevitably associated with the conditions they usually > > > represent for us, so it seems impossible to justify qualia on a > > > functionalist basis. Just as a computer needs no speakers and video > > > screen inside itself, there is no purpose for such a presentation > > > layer within our own mechanism. Of course, even if there were a > > > purpose, there is no hint of such a possibility from mechanism alone. > > > If there was some reason that a bucket of rocks could benefit by some > > > kind of collective 'experience' occurring amongst them, that's a > > > million miles from suspecting that experience could be a conceivable > > > possibility. > > > > Rather than 'consciousness', human beings would benefit evolutionarily > > > much more by just being able to do something mechanically conceivable > > > things like teleport, time travel, or breathe fire. Awareness doesn't > > > even make sense as a possibility. Were we not experiencing it > > > ourselves we could never anticipate any such possibility in any > > > universe. > > > Since there is no evolutionary advantage to consciousness it must be a > > side-effect of the sort of behaviour that conscious organisms display. > > Otherwise, why did we not evolve as zombies? > > Because existence is a subordinate category of awareness and not the > other way around. Evolution is an epiphenomenon of physics, and > physics is the back end of the Totality. The front end is awareness.
I have no idea what any of that means. -- 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.
