On 9/18/2019 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 4:25 PM 'Brent Meeker'
<everything-list@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
/> //Haven't you ever awoken from surgery? AG /
/
/
/>> Yes, and I think I was just the same as before and so does
everyone else. But maybe I am fundamentally different. How would I
know?/
>>> You'd ask people who knew you well.
And if you did that you would hear them make noises with their mouth,
but whatever consciousness is it certainly isn't those mouth noises.
If your lucky you may be able to detect a pattern in those noises that
would indicate intelligence, but you would have to make an additional
assumption to conclude that also indicated consciousness, namely that
consciousness is an inevitable byproduct of intelligence. In the real
world everybody makes that assumption a thousand times a day because
the alternative is solipsism.
They question was whether you could find out you were fundamentally
different after an operation. Not whether or not your friends were
conscious. Saibal said "No." apparently based only on the fact that he
couldn't trust introspection. But in that would equally imply he
couldn't tell whether he fundamentally changed from day to day, or
minute to minute. Of course nothing can provide certainty, but your
friends saying you act differently or you don't would be good evidence.
It's the same level of evidence for thinking one another consciousness,
but it's broader since you might be different in some way you were not
conscious of.
Brent
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