On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:32:21 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg > <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:>> > wrote: > > > I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion > > people talk to each other and give each other information, that some > kind of > > consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say > that it > > might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary > as to > > accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic > to > > my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, > then > > a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior > modification. > > Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost > > power...because...why? > > No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as > to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the > ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea > is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This > consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the > billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing > and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. >
You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. This being is literally made out of nothing at all except the fact of these computations taking place somewhere...but where? You say not in the consciousness of the brains of the people, so where? In the lead of the pencils on paper? In the signals of the telephone calls? Why is this new being local to this process? How is it attached to the computation-ness? Craig > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/7rqbFgCu5SAJ. 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.
