On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:58 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy < multiplecit...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:22 AM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> On 9/21/2014 5:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 1:34 AM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Good point Brent and one on which I am also equivocal, which is why I >>> have been keen to tease out whether people are talking about consciousness >>> or the contents of consciousness, and to try to work out whether there is, >>> in fact, any difference. If there isn't, consciousness becomes something >>> like *elan vital*, a supposed magic extra that isn't in fact necessary >>> in explanatory terms - all that exists are "bundles of sensations" (or >>> however Hume phrased it). >>> >> >> But in materialism we still have a magic extra: matter itself. In the >> MUH math is the magic extra. I don't know of any theory that gets rid of >> all "magic" assumptions. >> >> >> True. But matter explains lots of other stuff. Consciousness as a pure >> potentiality, distinct from any content, doesn't explain anything. >> >> >> >>> >>> In reply to John's comment, we *don't* know that sure that certain >>> types of brain activity cause consciousness, that's a (very reasonable) >>> hypothesis based on the fact the two appear to be always correlated. >>> >> >> We don't even know if they are strongly correlated, because we don't >> know what else is conscious. >> >> >> And we don't know that other people are conscious. But as JKC pointed >> out we do know that things that affect our brain affect our consciousness. >> Quite aside from anesthesia and concussions that make it go away (modulo >> your theory that we merely forget), it's affected by whiskey and pot and >> salvia and LSD, and the effects are even amenable to some explanation at >> the molecular level. >> >> >> Is an insect swarm conscious? Is your computer? Are galaxies? The >> problem is that we might be confusing empathy for consciousness. It is >> clear that the more an organism is similar to us the more empathy we feel >> (human > monkey > cat > insect > bacteria, ...). >> >> >> That's true on Bruno's definition of consciousness. >> > > I don't understand what you're driving at. Telmo seems to be asserting > ignorance of types of statements concerning consciousness. > Yes, this is all I'm claiming. > > If you negate this, don't you have to show your hand more than resorting > to discourse examples? > > >> But that's not the consciousness that we are told is indubitable and >> which we all intuititively know we have. >> > > This would be true concerning sufficiently rich machines as well...which > is why I don't see if/how your distinction leads anywhere. > > >> We attribute consciousness to other things as we perceive their behavior >> to be intelligent and goal directed; because that's how we recognize it in >> people: "How many fingers do you see?" "What day is it?" "Do you know >> where you are?". >> >> Brent >> >> -- >> 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/d/optout. >> > > -- > 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/d/optout. > -- 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/d/optout.
