Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
On 15/12/2008, at 2:16 PM, Colin Hales wrote: > An ability to deny self-awareness as a marker of self awareness. You > can use this as a logical bootstrap to sort things out. > > I like it! > > cheers > colin hales Anyone remember George Levy? Here is what he said about this: ..this only proves that any "sane" machine cannot be sure that it thinks correctly. So the sane machine would say: "I think but, since I may be insane, I am not sure if I am." Only the insane machine would positively assert "I think therefore I am!" So we know now where Descartes belongs: in an insane asylum, as do most philosophers, religious leaders and politicians. - George Levy > > Email: kmjco...@mac.com kimjo...@ozemail.com.au Web: http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music Phone: (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
A. Wolf wrote: >> "..*some subjective experience of personhood or* "being" *that we all >> share*, >> and each of us presumably experiences *something* like that." >> >> I emphasize the 'something': who knows if we experience (share?) the same >> feeling? The words we use to describe it are not more relevant than >> describing 'red'. > > Yes, absolutely. Hence the use of the word "presumably". The fact that > people seem to share an experience we can't directly measure is interesting. > The evidence of mankind's obsession with the experience of consciousness > comes from the amount of philosophical discussion (like this) that exists in > literature, both scientific and recreational. > >> Experience is an undefined mental marvel and conscious? > > What I'm referring to is the fact that so many people believe in a "soul", > that we experience consciousness in a way where we feel like we are the > author of our own destiny, that we experience life as though we are > travelling through time and making decisions. The idea of "me" has a static > implication that persists throughout our lives even as we grow and evolve. > It serves both social and self-preservationist functions, certainly, but the > phenomenon also causes a lot of discussion. Something about these > experiences is remarkable enough that mankind has authored a great deal of > text on it, and it forms the foundation of much of our mythology and > understanding of self. > > So the conscious experience I'm referring to is the commonality of the > experience of self-awareness as reported (orally and in writing) by human > beings...in particular the fact that most people are fully convinced that > their experiences are unique and an accurate reflection of the nature of > time, that they must either persist forever in some ephemeral form or else > the Universe ceases to be from their point of view when they die, those > sorts of things. > >> A 'computer' (what kind of? the embryonic simpleton of a pre-programed >> digital machine >> as we know it?) to "...spit out a bunch of >> symbols related to the experience" of self- awareness itself." - ??? > > What I meant here is this: > > It's not necessarily surprising that people would write a lot of things > about the soul, even if the soul does not exist in the same sense we > experience it. It's quite possible, scientifically speaking, that the > behavior of "write and talk a great deal about the experience of 'being' and > how magical it is" is a natural consequence of any self-aware system. A > common marker of self-awareness might be illogically rejecting the truth of > one's own automation. From an evolutionary perspective I don't see any good consequence of accepting that one is an automaton. Maybe there would be no bad consequences either, but it would be a waste of neurons to arrange for a brain to monitor its own neural processes (like a watchdog program?). Because evolution doesn't provide this function, we're unaware of most of our brain processes excepting only that small part that appears as conscious thought. Brent Meeker Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
A. Wolf wrote: >> "..*some subjective experience of personhood or* "being" *that we all >> share*, >> and each of us presumably experiences *something* like that." >> >> I emphasize the 'something': who knows if we experience (share?) the same >> feeling? The words we use to describe it are not more relevant than >> describing 'red'. >> > > Yes, absolutely. Hence the use of the word "presumably". The fact that > people seem to share an experience we can't directly measure is interesting. > The evidence of mankind's obsession with the experience of consciousness > comes from the amount of philosophical discussion (like this) that exists in > literature, both scientific and recreational. > > >> Experience is an undefined mental marvel and conscious? >> > > What I'm referring to is the fact that so many people believe in a "soul", > that we experience consciousness in a way where we feel like we are the > author of our own destiny, that we experience life as though we are > travelling through time and making decisions. The idea of "me" has a static > implication that persists throughout our lives even as we grow and evolve. > It serves both social and self-preservationist functions, certainly, but the > phenomenon also causes a lot of discussion. Something about these > experiences is remarkable enough that mankind has authored a great deal of > text on it, and it forms the foundation of much of our mythology and > understanding of self. > > So the conscious experience I'm referring to is the commonality of the > experience of self-awareness as reported (orally and in writing) by human > beings...in particular the fact that most people are fully convinced that > their experiences are unique and an accurate reflection of the nature of > time, that they must either persist forever in some ephemeral form or else > the Universe ceases to be from their point of view when they die, those > sorts of things. > > >> A 'computer' (what kind of? the embryonic simpleton of a pre-programed >> digital machine >> as we know it?) to "...spit out a bunch of >> symbols related to the experience" of self- awareness itself." - ??? >> > > What I meant here is this: > > It's not necessarily surprising that people would write a lot of things > about the soul, even if the soul does not exist in the same sense we > experience it. It's quite possible, scientifically speaking, that the > behavior of "write and talk a great deal about the experience of 'being' and > how magical it is" is a natural consequence of any self-aware system. A > common marker of self-awareness might be illogically rejecting the truth of > one's own automation. > > Anna > Interesting point. Consider a state of science (scientist behaviour) where a) consciousness = the ultimate source of final clinching scientific evidence = measurement and b) science tries to use (a) to explain consciousness and fails constantly (2000+ years) then c) still fails to let consciousness be evidence of whatever it is that actually generates it (c) is a kind of denial of the form you identify. Therefore you have proved that scientists are self-aware (= conscious) i.e. only people able to make this kind of self-referential mistake (demonstrating this kind of illogical rejection of a self-referential claim) can be conscious. An ability to deny self-awareness as a marker of self awareness. You can use this as a logical bootstrap to sort things out. I like it! cheers colin hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
> "..*some subjective experience of personhood or* "being" *that we all > share*, > and each of us presumably experiences *something* like that." > > I emphasize the 'something': who knows if we experience (share?) the same > feeling? The words we use to describe it are not more relevant than > describing 'red'. Yes, absolutely. Hence the use of the word "presumably". The fact that people seem to share an experience we can't directly measure is interesting. The evidence of mankind's obsession with the experience of consciousness comes from the amount of philosophical discussion (like this) that exists in literature, both scientific and recreational. > Experience is an undefined mental marvel and conscious? What I'm referring to is the fact that so many people believe in a "soul", that we experience consciousness in a way where we feel like we are the author of our own destiny, that we experience life as though we are travelling through time and making decisions. The idea of "me" has a static implication that persists throughout our lives even as we grow and evolve. It serves both social and self-preservationist functions, certainly, but the phenomenon also causes a lot of discussion. Something about these experiences is remarkable enough that mankind has authored a great deal of text on it, and it forms the foundation of much of our mythology and understanding of self. So the conscious experience I'm referring to is the commonality of the experience of self-awareness as reported (orally and in writing) by human beings...in particular the fact that most people are fully convinced that their experiences are unique and an accurate reflection of the nature of time, that they must either persist forever in some ephemeral form or else the Universe ceases to be from their point of view when they die, those sorts of things. > A 'computer' (what kind of? the embryonic simpleton of a pre-programed > digital machine > as we know it?) to "...spit out a bunch of > symbols related to the experience" of self- awareness itself." - ??? What I meant here is this: It's not necessarily surprising that people would write a lot of things about the soul, even if the soul does not exist in the same sense we experience it. It's quite possible, scientifically speaking, that the behavior of "write and talk a great deal about the experience of 'being' and how magical it is" is a natural consequence of any self-aware system. A common marker of self-awareness might be illogically rejecting the truth of one's own automation. Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Mind and personhood. Was: Kim 1
Dear Anna, I think this is the first time I reflect to your post and I found them reasonable, well informed. You wrote: "..*some subjective experience of personhood or* "being" *that we all share*, and each of us presumably experiences *something* like that." I emphasize the 'something': who knows if we experience (share?) the same feeling? The words we use to describe it are not more relevant than describing 'red'. "If we're scientists" - a loose cannon. "We" are thinking (list) past the restrictions of the general, conventional (reductionist) science - limits. Your questioning of the term conscious experience is very valid and loaded. Experience is an undefined mental marvel and conscious? I tried to think about it as: responding to information and keeping it AS: *EXPERIENCE* (ha ha). Of course redundancy can be eased by including motoric (muscle) experience, like e.g. ("stored" (?) motional (no 'e' missing) memory) or genetic inclination but that leads me to the question "function? what is it?" Maybe a relational togetherness, if someone does not know WHAT to call energy that may drive a function (action). (I don't). All that pertains to my earlier expressions of the above 'response to information', the basis for 'conscious' behavior. A 'computer' (what kind of? the embryonic simpleton of a pre-programed digital machine as we know it?) to "...spit out a bunch of symbols related to the experience" of self- awareness itself." - ??? Not beyond the domain fed-in as - and algorithmized as the digital-based 'program' - unless we talk about Bruno's universal (or: comp?) machine (what may be a pius wish). Our present contraptions do not 'create'. We don't know a lot but speak much more. Also: "our precious consciousness could be a mere illusion"? I do not denigrat the term, not like 'delusion, allusion, or collusion. It is very common to put into the Ccness term whatever one's theory requires and there is no reached concensus. I called it a process, *acknowledgement of and response to info*, in the most generalized aspect I could muster. Then again see my above words on the terms. Information is meant as appercipiated difference, but all in the comfort of accepting 'action' as a reality (without a driving 'energy' not yet satisfactorily defined. (reality - who's?) Did I confuse the issues? OK, then I did well. The terms we use are historically 'baggaged' and not clear. They *are* confusing/ed. If someone wants to clarify them that makes the text 'too technical'. My problem. If it is not yours as well, you are lucky and I congratulate. * In your previous, mostly appreciable post below you wrote (and I quote, - allow me please to interject): * >>..."as scientists they realize that the definitions we use do not define reality...<< ---JM: We have access only to parts of 'reality' - IF in a naive view (what I share) we indeed believe in such. Whatever 'we' formulate *OUR* reality (in our *personalized mini-solipsism - individual * for everyone (our personal *perceived reality).* * >>Definitions of words and concepts are merely tools for describing things to one another in a consistent manner. Real truth stems from examining the relationships between observable phenomena, by using operational definitions rather than essentialistic ones...<< ---JM: Real truth is a myth. Observable phenomena are accessed up to our actual capabilities - by limitations of the existing epistemic level, i.e. the cognitive inventory at the time of the observation. Similarly our 'understanding' (i.e. explanation) is at the same level. * One more word: *SELF *(conscious?) It may be just another 'relation' among constituents we call a 'group', 'person', 'item' or whatever, to make them 'interrelated' in a manner beyond our understanding for now. I am looking into a speculative possibility to such formlations as a basis for the (reductionistic) topical or functional 'model', within which conventional science works (appreciably) - if I can find natural reasons for our human ways in sci. etc. thinking. So the 'self'-pertinent relations may represent a more efficient connectivity in (the unidentified) processes we speak about. Sorry, this idea is not even underdeveloped. I can use any help. Best regards John M On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 1:35 AM, A. Wolf wrote: > > I apologize if I seemed rude or accusatory...I'm just expressing an idea. > Words are very useful, but systematic measurements are better for certain > things, because the Universe seems to allow us to repeat them. > > Issues involving the mind are intrinsically harder to tackle. Human > dialogue over the millenia suggests there's some subjective experience of personhood or "being" that we all share, and each of us presumably experiences something like that. > But we have no way to quantify or measure > the conscious experience itself. We're left feeling like there's something > missing from what we can measure. > > If we're scientists, what we should real
Re: KIM 1 (was: Lost and not lost 1)
Hi Kim, On 13 Dec 2008, at 02:27, Kim Jones wrote: > Isn't it great that we may soon be able to capture the soul to > disk You could have a Catholic soul, try an Islamic soul, reboot > as a Buddhist - any religion you want I am not sure someone will say yes to a doctor who propose an artificial brain with some remaining religious belief (or any belief) subroutine. Of course if those not really cleaned artificial brain are cheaper ... Would you say yes to a doctor who proposes to you an artifical brain which can give you new memories and new convictions? I can give you this brain, but chance are high you will wake up with the idea that all Europeans should be send in camps! --- Er ..., well, NO doctor. Thanks, I will economize for a clean new brain on which you will save my memories, not someone's else. > Are you saying the machine may not be "good enough"? - that it could > somehow fail to "capture the relevant instantaneous state"? What might > the implications of that be? There are many: roughly speaking: shit will happen. You can survive with agnosology: You are blind and deaf or amnesic, for example, but you pretend you lost nothing in the experience. You can survive with trouble: you feel having survive but with trouble: for example you have chronicle headache, and some difficulty to walk. You can survive with change: you feel well, but your wife feel you are no more yourself You can survive with big trouble: you are comatose, and seven doctors says you are dead, and three doctors say you are alive. You survive but only in the third person sense: everybody believed you have survive but God knows you are a zombie. You don't survive: you are dead: the instantaneous state is so crippled that no doctor can reconstitute a "soul" from that. I always assume the doctor 100% gifted, the machines working well, the substitution level rightly chosen, and the default assumptions (no asteroïd destroying earth during the experiments, etc. > Don't answer that - I will shut up Gosh! Too late! >> But once we make precise the hypothesis, fictionful argument are no >> less valid, and you see that once a machine bet she is a machine, by >> explicitly embracing a complete substitution of the (relative) body, >> she has to bet "she" is not material. > > > If "she" has enough brains and imagination to think it through, that > is OK Yes. You will seen (much later I 'm afraid) how few you need to modify a Universal Machine (a computer) to give her that imagination. Indeed she will get a little too much imagination a priori. The real work will eventually consists in lowering down that imagination. > OK - I have seen the shining light of understanding Thanks for telling. Of course, this is something that I will be able to judge only after the exam in June, or should I do a surprise interrogation :) > The hammer hits itself > The eye sees itself move > The tongue tastes itself Hmmm Zoologists are animals, but botanists are not plants. Not everything is capable of studying itself. Make sure you are using a sufficiently flexible hammer (be careful not hitting your fingers with this one). >> Here the "plan of the machine", codable by a number (and may be >> downloadable on the net), plays a role similar to Xenocrates' soul. > > > what if I download a corrupted version or one with a virus? Shit will happen again. See above. It is the same if you eat corrupted raw meat. You can end up with a worm in the brain. Probably not a very funny experience. >> In some sense I disagree with Xenocrates, but at this stage of the >> reasoning, you can identify yourself with the number which encodes a >> description of your body and mind, and in that sense, you are a >> number, which each evening put itself on a disk, and each morning >> choose among seven bodies to fit the day. >> With mechanism, you can save your soul on a disk. >> >> All right? > > > So that means we already exist on a disk somewhere, right... In a sense, this will be correct, yet I don't see how you deduce it at this stage. Up to now, you have to pay I don't know how much dollars for using a superscanning machine which copies your brain state (it can take month) and burn some disk with your instantaneous state description. And that disk is like a disk of music: it is not useful without some players with the right standard, and so one. If you break the disk, you have to do another backup, etc. > I hope these disks are in safe hands Ah! You see! > I am not my body - I am not my brain Assuming comp, this is unavoidable. OK. > I can change everything and anything I want about me and still > remain me ... provided you don't put too much mess on your backup disk > ergo "I" am an immaterial something: probably a number or a very long > bitstring which can, like any data, be crunched Here I disagree, or I agree, because the wor
Re: KIM 1 (was: Lost and not lost 1)
On 12 Dec 2008, at 23:38, ronaldheld wrote: > > Bruno: > I am uncertain that this was answered. > You are starting with mathematics, Not really. I am starting with the "real world". I assume you have a brain disease and that your doctor proposed to you an artificial digital, supposedly material (at this stage)) brain. And I show (by a long reasoning which asks for some effort of course) the logical consequences of the assumption that you survive (in the usual Hospital sense of perfect surviving a medical operation) with it. > and going to some Multiversal > computation program? If there is no physical universe, what does the > computer run on? With no energy, how are your thoughts being > generated? It is the point of all the reasoning to explain this. To help you to be patient I can say this (but justify it only later): the physical universe as we observe it will emerge from consciousness, which emerges from the computations, which emerge from the relation which exists among the natural numbers. The ontological theory of everything is just elementary arithmetic. The rest, including time space energy, will be explained as first person view that numbers develop relatively to each other. Modestly, I show only it has to be so, once we assume comp. And I show a path for how to proceed, but there could be other path, as some suggest in the list. Once the path is completed we can compare the comp-physics with the empirical world, and , well, perhaps abandon comp if comp is contradictory with the facts. Bruno PS Note that quantum computation does not need energy to proceed, and this is actually a bit mysterious with respect to the comp hypothesis. READ and WRITE needs energy. I will not explain because this could generate confusion. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 1 (was: Lost and not lost 1)
On 13 Dec 2008, at 18:27, John Mikes wrote: > Bruno wrote: > > "...I am not my body - I am not my brain -- > I can change everything and anything I want about me and still > remain me ergo "I" am an immaterial something: probably a number or > a very long bitstring which can, like any data, be crunched..." Kim wrote this, but it is ok, I almost agree with KIm. Almost because, at some point we have to distinguish the 1-I and the 3-I. The 1-I will be unameable, and is not a string or a number. It is a person. But assuming comp, a person can be encoded locally through a brain/body/ program/number.combinators/whatever finite and useful relatively to the most probable computational histories. > * > I like the 'probably', with a 'meaningless' word to answer the > unanswered question (What am I?) and the same with the 'bitstring' > kind. > > Bruno, I wonder if you 'mean' BRAIN as part of your (material?!) > body ONLY, restricted to physiology and physical (figment) data? I > don't think so. > Suppose we agree to call 'brain' the function of ideation included > as well which leaps into the Chalmers's hard problem, but definitely > more than just the goo in our skull. I call it a complexity of > unlisted parts, one of them the 'goo': the tool to manipulate mental > aspects in a sense described in the figment-details of the physical > world. We have in conventional science a (reductionist) description > how the brain might work and shove all the unknown functions into > open "SOMEHOW"-s. > It may even go beyond 'numbers' since they, too, are within the > manipulations of the figment. Would you have another 'word'? I do the assumption of computationalism. A (generalized) brain, in UDA, is any portion of the universe, or my neighborhood, that I have to copy for surviving in the usual sense (keeping my mental and physical heath for example) through the copy. In UDA[1...6] I simplify the thought experience by identifying that generalized brain with the organic matter in the skull, but such simplifying assumption is eliminated at the seventh step. > > (Conventional science - with all its 'empirics' - is based on > assumptions to explain what we could not understand in phenomena > halfway perceived. So it is a kind of religion with a bit different > vocabulary. So much to your 'score': > Science - 1 --- Religion - 1.) > > Please, do not say: "mind", without identifying properly what you > mean by that. By mind I mean anything which can be experienced by any machine (this include the human mind by the comp hypothesis). Thus, mind includes pleasure, pain, conviction, astonishment, feeling this or that real, all the illusions, etc. > Also "body" is suspect (see the 1st line of this text). The reasoning is made for helping the process of making "body" more and more suspect, at least in his substantial primitive or materialist form. > > I am scared to apply half-way the eliminated conventional > (figmentous) concepts together with th 'new' ideas similarly halfway > identified. > I wouldn't call such wording "too technical". No problems. Please ask when things are unclear, Best Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: KIM 1 (was: Lost and not lost 1)
On 14 Dec 2008, at 03:30, A. Wolf wrote: > > One of the reasons I rarely post to this list is that many people here > seem trapped in an eternal series of meaningless essentialistic > debates. Who ? Where ? How? (I hope you are alluding to the materialists here). > Nothing objective or conclusive ever comes from > essentialistic arguments where people bicker over what some word or > concept "really means". I agree. (Mainly, for technical reason in some context essentialistic argument can speed-up argumentation, but I agree with you that this should be done only if the "essentialist" part of the definition can be eliminated, or it could be done provisorily in pehnomenologies). > > > Science used to suffer from this. Not only science. Also philosophy, religion, humanity. Science is just the attitude of being aware that, if we want to understand each others, we can only de-essentialize somehow. There is no field which cannot benefit from that attitude in the long run. > About 120 years ago, biologists > used to argue about the meaning of "life". > Were viruses alive? OK, you can see this as an essentialist question. Is a cigarette pack alive? Well, it has a rather crazy reproduction cycle! > Were > sperm alive? Of course biologists today have a clear and definite answer: sperm are alive. By all conventional definitions. "Is a human sperm a human" is much more debated, and some of those debate could be related to essentialist misconceptions. > What they could or could not consider "alive" was really > important to the old-school biologists, and there was endless debate > between them. (People on both sides of the abortion issue still make > these kinds of empty arguments.) Keep in mind you are in applied science. To take already matter for granted is, I think, one of the big last essentialist illusion in science. It prevents the questioning on matter and on the origin of matter, etc. > > > But today, biologists don't care what "life" means. OK. > They accept an > arbitrary definition for "life" because they're scientists, and as > scientists they realize that the definitions we use do not define > reality. All right. > Definitions of words and concepts are merely tools for > describing things to one another in a consistent manner. Indeed. > Real truth > stems from examining the relationships between observable phenomena, Let me cut the hairs: Real Truth stems, HOPEFULLY, from examining the relationships between observable phenomena. OK. > > by using operational definitions rather than essentialistic ones. I so much agree with you. That is even exactly why I approach the mind body problem through the digital mechanist hypothesis. That hypothesis makes possible a purely operational and deductive approach to the consciousness/matter relationship problem. > > Anything less than this is semantics. I am less sure why you say this. Semantics are good to provide consistency, to show independence of beliefs, etc. -- Let me comment here your "mind and personhood. Was Kim 1" post. > I apologize if I seemed rude or accusatory... No need. Essentialism ruins science, even poetry and art can succumb. In applied science, you can almost always use essentialism to hide deductive consequences. I suspect some people does that often, but if you read the posts here, most people are rather careful in that setting. Of course most attempt to use a notion of "real matter" is bounded to essentialism since Aristotle introduces that idea in "science". Modern physics is not yet completely cured. > Words are very useful, but systematic measurements are better for > certain > things, because the Universe seems to allow us to repeat them. Of course. But systematic measurements makes sense only to confront theories. Which needs words, deduction rule, semantics, etc. > Issues involving the mind are intrinsically harder to tackle. Human > dialogue over the millenia suggests there's some subjective > experience of > personhood or "being" that we all share, and each of us presumably > experiences something like that. But we have no way to quantify or > measure > the conscious experience itself. We're left feeling like there's > something > missing from what we can measure. Making it a fascinating field. And we have an old theory, Mechanism, renewed recently by a couple of major impressive discoveries: the discovery by Babbage, Post, Turing, Kleene, Church ... of the universal machine, and the discovery by Feynman, Deutsch Beniof Kitaev, Friedman... of quantum universal machine. > If we're scientists, what we should really be asking is this: why do > people > say all the things they do about conscious experience? OK. Another questionr, will the self-observing machine says similar things. how much similar, how to compare, etc. > It doesn't seem too > strange to think that a computer pro