On 22 August 2013 13:20, chris peck <chris_peck...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Hi Craig > > > am saying that the ontology of desire is impossible under strong > determinism. Deterministic and random processes cannot possibly produce > desire - not because desire is special, but because it doesn't make any > sense. You are talking about putting in a gas pedal on a bowling ball. > > > I think I can meet you half way and agree that in a determined universe > wants, desires and anxieties would be futile. They wouldn't make sense from > an adaptive point of view.
That's no more true for a determined universe than it is for a non-determined universe. > But I'm not convinced they make no logical sense. For example they could be > epiphenomena coming along for the ride, unnecessarily colouring the > unraveling of pre-written events. > > The determined universe might be inefficient, if you like, carrying along > with it baggage that isn't really used. The wants and anxieties would be > implied by the universe's initial conditions and not everything in those > conditions need be functional. I don't see a logical contradiction there. > > All the best. If it were possible to have the same behaviour without consciousness then consciousness would not have evolved - there would be no adaptive value to it. That is one reason why I think consciousness must be a necessary side-effect of intelligent behaviour, at least in organic machines such as we are. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
