> On 23 Jul 2019, at 06:45, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:30 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com > <mailto:stath...@gmail.com>> wrote: > On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:39, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com > <mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 11:19 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com > <mailto:stath...@gmail.com>> wrote: > On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:13, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com > <mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 10:41 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com > <mailto:stath...@gmail.com>> wrote: > On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 08:55, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com > <mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > I am reminded of Kafka's novella, 'Metamorphosis': "When Gregor Samsa awoke > one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous > cockroach in his bed."...... > > Is the person just the brain, or is there more to it? > > If you radically changed your body, you would also change the inputs to your > brain. So we can maintain the theory that the sense of self comes directly > from the brain. > > You might wish to maintain this theory, but you, yourself, have directly > contradicted it by saying that our sense of self depends on the inputs to the > brain. The qualification "directly" adds nothing but obfuscation. > > The inputs to the brain affect the brain state, and our experiences depend on > the brain state. If a particular brain state could be implemented in the > absence of inputs, the experience would be the same as if the inputs were > there. Do you disagree with this? > > Yes. Experience is not a static unity -- it depends on the inputs. So a brain > state in the absence of inputs would not experience anything. Sensory > deprivation experiments show that in the absence of external sensory inputs, > the brain tends to go into a looping mode. But then, we cannot separate the > brain from inputs coming from the body -- heartbeat, breathing, contact with > the floor, and so on. So the brain does not exist in the absence of inputs. > Experience depends on the passage of time, marked by some change or the > other. And the change in inputs is the only relevant measure of the passage > of time. Remove these and you have a non-conscious, comatose, state. > > The inputs serve to put the brain in a particular state, but the brain could > go into the same state without the inputs. This can be a practical problem in > patients with schizophrenia: the may hear voices and are convinced that the > voices are real, to the point where they might assault someone because of > what they believe he said. > > And I believe that if a particular small area of the brain is stimulated, the > subject experiences the colour red. Similarly, if the colour red is shown, > that same area of the brain shows activity. So quailia are nothing but > particular brain activity. There is no additional "magic sauce" in > consciousness. > > These same areas of the brain could be excited at random, as in your > schizophrenic example. All that goes to show is that consciousness is nothing > more than brain activity. Absent brain activity, there is no consciousness.
But absence of consciousness does not entail absence of brain activity. With mechanism, the personal identity can be defined by the personal memory, and a person cannot be identified with its brain or its body, because that person can in principle do a backup of itself, and reload herself with a different body and brain. Changing our bodies illustrates that the body is more like a mean of transport and a way to interact with pals. Note that the personal identity is not a transitive notion. Step 3 actually illustrates well this. I recall he cut and copy itself from Helsinki (H) in both Washington (W) and Moscow (M). With the definition of the personal identity above, both the HW and the HM guy are, from that personal identity view, the same person as the H person. But from the indexical first personal “lived” view, the HW guy knows that he is not the same (first) person as the HM person, and vice versa, but both can agree (and could have decided beforehand) that they are legally the same person, and “right descendant” of the H person. If the duplication iterated, all histories are realised (in this particular protocol) and it is a simple exercise to show that the majority of first person obtained have no possible algorithm for both their past and futures. The non random histories get rare (meagre) when the number of iteration get high (in the limit). The first person I is 3p-relative, but 1p absolute (the HM person knows that he is not the HW person, even if he knows that this is absolutely non communicable, like “I am conscious”. The outsider knows (modulo the assumptions of course) that both copies will feel like if they were the original, and rightly so. Bruce, I know that you are not a fan of mechanism, but are you OK with all this when we assume Mechanism, if only for the sake of the argument? One advantage of Digital Mechanism (aka computationalism) is that it allows simple thought experiences which shows quickly what we are getting at (a many histories interpretation of elementary arithmetic), but we get also the possibility of using the mathematical theory of computations and computability, so we can refine the argument, and already derive a bit of the mathematical physics that the universal machine deduce itself from the computationalist hypothesis. That is not an evidence for the truth of mechanism, of course, but I like to search the key under the reverberate of mathematics, where ideas/keys can be found and tested. Bruno > > Bruce > > -- > 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 > <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTMS0oNpr%2BUPY9gUceL66hb66dNU6fXgAk0ZOSEyObgpg%40mail.gmail.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTMS0oNpr%2BUPY9gUceL66hb66dNU6fXgAk0ZOSEyObgpg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/85D0F4AC-707D-4D9B-ABB5-490AF28CB481%40ulb.ac.be.
