--- Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 17/02/2008, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I believe his target is the existence of consciousness. There are many > proofs > > showing that the assumption of consciousness leads to absurdities, which I > > have summarized at http://www.mattmahoney.net/singularity.html > > In mathematics, it should not be necessary to prove a theorem more than > once. > > But proof and belief are different things, especially when the belief is > hard > > coded into the brain. > > It seems that you are conflating what in philosophy are usually > considered distinct subjects: consciousness and personal identity. > Consciousness may seem mysterious and ineffable, but at bottom it's > just the fact that I experience a red object when I look at a red > object, as opposed to being blind and only pretending that I see a red > object. Personal identity involves the belief that the observer of the > red object now is the "same person" as the observer of the red object > before. It is this idea which the various thought experiments you > describe show to be ultimately vacuous, even though as you say we have > evolved to believe it at our core even when it is contradicted by what > we recognise as sound intellectual counterarguments.
You're right. As John Ku also pointed out, I am confusing the identity aspect of consciousness with the qualia aspect. Given that we have (currently) only one example (the human brain), it is easy to confuse other aspects like language, episodic memory, free will, having goals, and other human qualities. Nevertheless we can make similar reductions to absurdity with respect to qualia, that which distinguishes you from a philosophical zombie. There is no experiment to distinguish whether you actually experience redness when you see a red object, or simply behave as if you do. Nor is there any aspect of this behavior that could not (at least in theory) be simulated by a machine. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
