On 15 Mar 2015, at 20:37, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1523413.ece
An interesting paper that reviews the history on consciousness in
philosophy in order to display that
"Twenty years ago, however, an instant myth was born: a myth about a
dramatic resurgence of interest in the topic of consciousness in
philosophy, in the mid-1990s, after long neglect."
I am not sure that it was a myth. I have wittnessed it, as the subject
of consciousness was an ultra-taboo subject, even for most
psychologist. Scientist were, more or less consciously, influence by
positivisme. There are just been an understanding that positivism and
instrumentalistm where incoherent.
It happens that philosophical zombies have been invented already in
18th century
No doubt. After Descartes attempts to solve the mind-body problem,
there has been a lot of work on the subject. Leibniz was well aware of
the problem. It the problems which are usually answered by the so-
called religion, and in fact, it is more or less recent that the
subject has been made taboo, due to that influence of the Vienne
circle. Wittgenstein, fortunately changed his mind, but not all
scientists realize the reason he was forced to do so.
'In 1755 Charles Bonnet observed that God “could create an automaton
that would imitate perfectly all the external and internal actions
of man”. In 1769, following Locke, he made a nice point against
those who resisted materialism on religious grounds: “if someone
ever proved that the mind is material, then far from being alarmed,
we should have to admire the power that was able to give matter the
capacity to think”.'
That is the aristotelian assumption. The belief in some primitive
matter. The taking of granted that physics is the fundamental science,
and that everything "real" is material.
But no one has ever prove or given an evidence for such a primitive
matter.
And we do have samples of non material entity, like the game of chess,
the french nationality, the numbers and the mathematical structures,
the waves and the singularities.
So Charles Bonnet is right, mind would be material if we are non-
machine, and then you need a God to duplicate it, and to make the
consistent selection.
Wat would iot mean to make matter thinking, except in the sense that
aspect of matter are turing universal, and can implement, thus, other
machines, universal or not.
Bonnet is just expressing itself badlly, perhaps, but the resistance
is not on religious ground, it is the use of matter which is
criticized for being religious without saying.
If matter exists, the question is how matter selects your first person
mind state among an infinity of computations (with oracles).
A religion is a solution to the mind-body problem. For historical
reasons, perhaps Löbian reasons too, we tolerate the lack of rigor in
the field, and we tolerate the argument-per-authority, the fairy
tales, etc. I guess machines exploits the consistency of
inconsistency right at the start.
But it is a problem which interest all creatures which ask about
themselves if they will stop, or not, who they are, and what happens,
etc. Universal machine are dumbfounded by such questions.
Consciousness is the first mystical state, where you hallucinate, make
the experience, that there is a reality/god/truth.
Bruno
Evgenii
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