On 7/8/2024 1:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Jul 8, 2024, 4:01 PM John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 2:23 PM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com>
wrote:
/> If you believe mental states do not cause anything, then
you believe philosophical zombies are logically possible
(since we could remove consciousness without altering behavior)./
Not if consciousness is the inevitable byproduct of intelligece,
and I'm almost certain that it is.
If consciousness is necessary for intelligence, then it's not a
byproduct. If on the other hand, consciousness is just a useless
byproduct, then it could (logically if not nomologically) be
eliminated without affecting intelligent.
You seem to want it to be both necessary but also be something that
makes no difference to anything (which makes it unnecessary).
I would be most curious to hear your thoughts regarding the section of
my article on "Conscious behaviors" -- that is, behaviors which (seem
to) require consciousness in order to do them.
/> I view mental states as high-level states operating in
their own regime of causality (much like a Java computer
program)./
I have no problem with that, actuallyit's very similar to my view.
That's good to hear.
/> The java computer program can run on any platform,
regardless of the particular physical nature of it./
Right. You could even say that "computer program" is not a noun,
it is an adjective, it is the way a computer will behave when the
machine's logical states are organized in a certain way. And "I"
is the way atoms behave when they are organized in a Johnkclarkian
way, and "you" is the way atoms behave when they are organized in
a Jasonreschian way.
I'm not opposed to that framing.
/> I view consciousness as like that high-level control
structure. It operates within a causal realm where ideas and
thoughts have causal influence and power, and can reach down
to the lower level to do things like trigger nerve impulses./
Consciousness is a high-level description of brain statesthat can
be extremely useful, but that doesn't mean that lower level and
much more finely grained description of brain states involving
nerve impulses, or even more finely grained descriptions involving
electrons and quarks are wrong, it's just that such level of
detail is unnecessary and impractical for some purposes.
I would even say, that at a certain level of abstraction, they become
irrelevant. It is the result of what I call "a Turing firewall",
software has no ability to know its underlying hardware
implementation, it is an inviolable separation of layers of
abstraction, which makes the lower levels invisible to the layers above.
That's roughly true, but not exactly. If you think of intelligence
implemented on a computer it would make a difference if it had a true
random number generator (hardware) or not. It would make a difference
if it were a quantum computer or not. And going the other way, what if
it didn't have a multiply operation. We're so accustomed the standard
Turing-complete von Neumann computer we take it for granted.
Brent
So the neurons and molecular forces aren't in the drivers seat for
what goes on in the brain. That is the domain of higher level
structures and forces. We cannot ignore completely the lower levels,
they provide the substrate upon which the higher levels are built, but
I think it is an abuse of reductionism that leads people to saying
consciousness is an epiphenomenon and doesn't do anything. When no one
would try to apply reductionism to explain why, when a glider in the
game of life hits a block and causes it to self destruct, that it is
due to quantum mechanics in our universe, rather than a consequence of
the very different rules of the game of life as they operate in the
game of life universe.
Jason
John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
qb2
--
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/CAJPayv28Yh4o5TGpuZ2nfh7NFxYWbi4yVW%2B5v%3DbeXULDqdbPsg%40mail.gmail.com
<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv28Yh4o5TGpuZ2nfh7NFxYWbi4yVW%2B5v%3DbeXULDqdbPsg%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/CA%2BBCJUjBw4RA-YBpKERYR5swmxieSUkv_%3DXyttLmszc8XOtd8g%40mail.gmail.com
<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUjBw4RA-YBpKERYR5swmxieSUkv_%3DXyttLmszc8XOtd8g%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/3724cae4-dcf3-4987-a190-108891f1f9ef%40gmail.com.
