On 4/28/2021 4:40 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 7:25 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<everything-list@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
On 4/28/2021 3:17 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 5:51 PM John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com
<mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 4:48 PM Terren Suydam
<terren.suy...@gmail.com <mailto:terren.suy...@gmail.com>> wrote:
/>>> testimony of experience constitutes facts
about consciousness./
>> Sure I agree, provided you firstaccept that
consciousness is the inevitable byproduct of
intelligence
/> I hope the irony is not lost on anyone that you're
insisting on your theory of consciousness to make your
case that theories of consciousness are a waste of time./
If you believe in Darwinian evolution and if you believe you
are consciousthen given that evolution can't select for what
it can't see and natural selection can see intelligent
behavior but it can't see consciousness, can you give me an
explanation of how evolution managed to produce a conscious
being such as yourself if intelligence is not the inevitable
byproduct of intelligence?
It's not an inevitable byproduct of intelligence if consciousness
is an epiphenomenon. As you like to say, consciousness may just
be how data feels as it's being processed. If so, that doesn't
imply anything about intelligence per se, beyond the minimum
intelligence required to process data at all... the simplest
example being a thermostat.
That said, do you agree that testimony of experience constitutes
facts about consciousness?
It wouldn't if it were just random, like plucking passages out of
novels. We only take it as evidence of consciousness because
there are consistent patterns of correlation with what each of us
experiences. If every time you pointed to a flower you said
"red", regardless of the flower's color, a child would learn that
"red" meant a flower and his reporting when he saw red wouldn't be
testimony to the experience of red. So the usefulness of reports
already depends on physical patterns in the world. Something I've
been telling Bruno...physics is necessary to consciousness.
Brent
I agree with everything you said there, but all you're saying is that
intersubjective reality must be consistent to make sense of other
peoples' utterances. OK, but if it weren't, we wouldn't be here
talking about anything. None of this would be possible.
Which is why it's a fool's errand to say we need to explain qualia. If
we can make an AI that responds to world the way we to, that's all there
is to saying it has the same qualia.
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 view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/bfe08930-bf9a-c88b-be8b-f621e5488c4f%40verizon.net.