Chip with simple program for Toy

[Kevin Aylward]

Bob Myers wrote:

"RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174865326.733685.32870@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
More precisely, we know that chimps behave in a
manner which appears consistent with our own experiences
of self-awareness, and on this we base an assumption that
they are, in fact, self-aware. However, since self-awareness
it itself a personal experience, we cannot directly observe it
or sense it for ourselves re the chimp (or any other entity) in
question.

Are you familiar with the mirror test for
self-awareness? We can define self-aware as
anything which passes that test. Then that is
'conscious', by definition.

Sure - but as you've already noted, we can define ourselves
out of just about any tough question. Using the mirror test
as completely sufficient for determining "self-awareness" is
not satisfying, simply because we DO have direct experience
of this thing called "consciousness" and from that have the
feeling that there IS something more to it than merely the
proper set of externally-observable behaviors. We may, in
feeling that, be deluding ourselves - but admitting that doesn't
get rid of that feeling that we haven't really come up with anything
when playing with definitions.

Exactly. Anyone that holds the view that the electro-chemical discription of
the brain, is all there is consciousness, let them come over to my house for
a Basil Fawlty, "Manuel, let me explain".

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

forbisgaryg@msn.com says...
stevendaryl3...@yahoo.com (Daryl McCullough) wrote:
Kevin Aylward says...

Oh dear. Its clear that you just haven't thought this thing
through at all. A machine doesn't have "experience".

On what basis do you say that? I can understand how one could use
introspection as evidence that he has experience, what counts as
evidence that something *doesn't* have experience?

What is the evidence that God doesn't exist?

I don't know what would count as evidence for or against
the existence of God. It depends on how you define "God".

In general, we rely upon positive evidence that something exists
before asserting it. It seems to me the appropriate question is:
What counts as evidence for experience (qualia)?

It depends on how you define qualia. I don't think it actually
has a very clear definition.

Why is it that we assume other humans and many animals have
experience but plants do not?

The way I feel about it is that it's simply a matter of the
sophistication of the response to changing conditions. Plants
respond in extremely simple ways to changing conditions: they
bend towards the sunlight, they put out roots to seek out water.
Animals have a much more sophisticated repertoire of responses
to the environment. I think that that's all that "having experience"
means.

The word "experience" in consciousness contexts mean the things that only
conscious entities have. Like, a kick in the balls *hurts*. You see a
colour and it makes an impression that you are "aware" of, sensations, etc.
Its impossible to give a circular free definition of any of theses terms,
because, as I have noted, its all circular. We just have to assume as an
axiom "consciousness " exits, and go from there. Just as we do in any other
science.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

Kevin Aylward says...

We say that feelings aren't physical. Memories aren't physical.
Ideas aren't physical. Qualia aren't physical. Tangible objects
are physical, intangible objects are not physical. But that's all
pure bull shit created by people that didn't even know we had a
physical brain.

Oh dear. Its clear that you just haven't thought this thing through
at all. A machine doesn't have "experience".

On what basis do you say that? I can understand how one could use
introspection as evidence that he has experience, what counts as
evidence that something *doesn't* have experience?

All due respect, here, but if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness, there will need to
do it without me. I don't have the time to engage in such pointless debates.


--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Bob Myers wrote:

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:03qNh.22655$267.6241@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...
Not the "real" probability, no - but on the other hand,
"probability" is ALWAYS an expression of our ignorance about a
given set of circumstances.

Actually, its not, and that is what motivated my statement above.

I certainly understand the QM exceptions to the above, but let's
at least agree that when people are speaking of probabilities in
the course of a typical discussion, they're talking about that subject
as it applies to everyday, normal-physical-world experience, which
is what I intended here. The world of QM is certainly not "everyday,"
and while it may definitely have significance when we're speaking
of "consciousness," we should probably only consider that level of
things after explicitly bringing it into the discussion. It's just
too different, and too likely to bring in confusion with "normal"
experience.

And in everyday practice, so do I - I don't worry about whether
or not the next person I meet is "really" conscious. However, the
A.I. possibilities that keep coming up in these discussions are the
main reason I can't claim quite as high a degree of confidence as
you seem to re "zombies" (broadly defined to include non-human
entities) being impossible.

Again, its imagining a morph of a system getting more and more
interactive to causes and giving responses such that consciousness
just emerges. It just seems that as one tries to develop a Zombie,
it will just automatically become conscious.

But that's working under the assumption that consciousness IS an
emergent property of a sufficiently complex "intelligent" system. While
that may be the case, it has not been demonstrated and is just a
suspicion at this point. (Some people have made fairly sophisticated
arguments AGAINST it being quite that simple - I probably should
go a dig some of those out.)

For me, this is pretty much derivable by my "no magic axiom". That is, we
assume no magic, we assume that consciousness exists, we can argue pretty
convincingly that simple systems are not conscious beyond reasonable doubt,
i.e. we can observe billions of simple systems. I don't see that we are left
with any choice that, consciousness is an emergent property.

The major limitation on our knowledge at
this point is that we only have one example of a demonstrated
"conscious, complex system" to examine - the human brain (or mind, if
you're a dualist).

Noting that there is no claim that all complex, interacting systems
necessarily become conscious.

As we've already covered, once an artificial
system is demonstrated which at least simulates the behavior of
consciousness, we've got a problem on our hands - because this upsets
the applecart of those who would maintain that consciousness is the
special quality that "can" only arise in biological systems. But
we'll still be faced with the problem of showing that this system, no
matter how clever its responses, actually IS conscious as opposed to
just being a clever collection of programming.

This is a very difficult problem, and for me, essentially, impossible. There
are some that even suggest that a baby is not truly conscious, so we can do
what we want with them, i.e there are claims that they don't feel pain.



--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

Kevin Aylward says...

Have you actually read my paper?

http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/thehardproblem.html

Well, I have a reaction to your paper. Your main point seems to be
that mental concepts such as "consciousness", "understanding",
"emotion", "awareness", "perception", etc. have self-referential
definitions. Therefore, you cannot ever give a purely physical
definition of any of them.

I actually don't consider that such a terrible situation to be
in. We can just go ahead and define all these mental terms
self-referentially. These self-referential definitions then
are not *actually* definitions, but are *axioms* constraining
possible interpretations of mental terms. If the axioms don't
uniquely pin down what the mental terms mean, then that means
that there are possible *nonstandard* interpretations of those
terms. In a similar way, the first-order axioms of Peano arithmetic
don't uniquely pin down the natural numbers---there are nonstandard
interpretations of those axioms.

er... yes, yes, yes,, yes,..ad infinitem

I suppose you missed the bit in my posts, to wit...

************************
For example, both the shrodinger equation and the constant of light
postulate are not derivable from prior physics. We don't state that the
constant speed of light is not part of physics because we cannot deduce it
from other laws, we simply introduce it as a new law, and derive new
results from that new axiom. Consciousness is another new law of physics.
It is part of physics, but can not be reduced (explained by) to something
prior in physics. Nothing can explain qualia.
************
**************
Clearly, my "no magic axiom", means that consciousness is indeed a part of
physics in the sense that, whatever it is, it is strictly the result of the
physical structure in the brain. However, it is a new axiom of physics.
*******************

I alos noted that even with

F=ma

We have the same problem. We cant define force and mass independently.

In the absence of any non-circular reason for preferring one
model of mentality over another, we can instead study "models
of consciousness" (plural).

Yes.

I know that doesn't get you towards what some philosophers
think of as a desirable goal, to characterize the one and
only true theory of the mind. For some people, there is one
*true* consciousness, and anything else is pseudo-consciousness.
But I think that attitude is wrong-headed. If there are
non-circular reasons for saying that our consciousness is *real*
and the other kinds of consciousness are not, then we can include
that reasons in our axioms of consciousness. If there are no
non-circular reasons for distinguishing "real" consciousness
from "pseudo" consciousness, then don't distinguish them. Treat
them both as equally good notions of "consciousness".

In the same way that Turing machines, recursive functions, lambda
calculus, etc. are all equally good models of computation, there
could be multiple, equally good ways to implement consciousness.

Yes. even in physics, there are two mathematically identical ways to account
for the results of special relativity. One is special relativity, the other
is the lorentz aether theory. They are based on contradictory axioms to each
other, but are indistinguishable physically.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Lawson English]

The_Man wrote:

On Mar 23, 12:59 am, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 21, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Clearly, my "no magic axiom", means that consciousness
is indeed a part of physics in the sense that, whatever it
is, it is strictly the result of the physical structure in
the brain. However, it is a new axiom of physics.
By derivable, it is meant, that it logically follows from
known laws of physics.
There's another consideration... in quantum
mechanics, the observer occupies a special
place - the wave function cannot collapse
(to a particular event)without one. But
'observer' is vague... presumably, it means
consciousness.

Presumably, it doesn't. The wave function collapses during
measurement, as best that it is understood, because it interacts with
a classical system. "Conciousness" doesn't have anything to do with it
at all. The measuring device is an inherently classical (i.e., quantum
state with very high quantum number, so that it appreoaches the
predictions of classical mechanics, the so-called "correspondence
principle".)

Hence, consciousness has
some attribute whch interacts with nature.

--
Rich

Depends on how you define "consciousness." Hagelin defines consciousness
in Vedic terms: Observer, observed and process of observation, and shows
that these are the core of Quantum theory.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?key=1535870
http://ccdb4fs.kek.jp/cgi-bin/img/allpdf?198912227

IN fact, using Vedic cosmology to guide him, Hagelin performed the
initial tweaks to Nanapolus's Flipped SU(5) theory, and found that the
tweaks made the theory more robust from a Western scientific
perspective. Hagelin contacted Ellis of CERN who contacted Nanopolous,
and the three published quite a few papers on the subject over the years.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+A+HAGELIN+AND+A+ELLIS+AND+A+NANOPOULOS

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Curt Welch wrote:

stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com (Daryl McCullough) wrote:

Let me try an analogy. Suppose we're talking about
socks. Some philosopher has a theory that there are true
socks and there are pseudo-socks. This philosopher
doesn't yet have any physical test to distinguish
true socks from pseudo-socks, and he *also* doesn't
have any explanation for why anyone would care whether
they are wearing true socks or pseudo-socks. But he
insists that there is a property of "intrinsic sockness"
that is not reducible to the physical facts. Why would
such a theory of socks make any sense? Why is the
possibility of zombies any different from the possibility
of pseudo-socks?]

Or more interesting, why are so many people hung up on this idea of
pseudo-humans vs real humans but yet there is never any long draw out
debates about pseudo-socks? It's the exact same debate in both cases.
It's illogical to believe in one and not the other.

Why do people have long drawn out debates about God, but never about
the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Again, the exact same debate in both
cases. And again, it's illogical to believe in one and not the other
- there is an equal amount of proof about both.

It's because they were conditioned to believe in one by the
environment they grew up in but not the other. People are told by
other people who they trust and respect that humans are conscious -
that we all share this "magic" about us which doesn't exist elsewhere
in the universe. We all are able to sense the activity of our own
brain, and so we assigned the word "consciousness" to this internal
brain activity. But we are also told that this internal brain
activity was not physical. And it made sense because everything else
that is physical we can touch, and play with. But brain activity is
not something most of us every get to touch - so it sounded
reasonable to believe brain activity was not physical.

So now, all these people waste endless hours trying to figure out the
hard problem. They are trying to figure out how something non
physical can rise up out of the physical.

The solution is trivial. It was a LIE! What your mentors told you
was wrong. Brain activity is physical. Those thoughts and images
and sounds and qualia you sense in your head is just the physical
behavior of your brain. There's nothing non-physical there to be
explained.

You misunderstand. The majority of those that are discussing qualia also
agree absolutely that such qualia are only due to the physical construction
of the brain. This however, don't address what the the hard problem is
about.

You need to read up and understand what "The hard problem" actually is.

The hard problem isn't hard at all. Stop believing what the idiots
from the past told you and think for yourself. There's no evidence
to suggest that mental activity is non-physical. It's just what they
told you. And they were wrong. The fact that this false belief
creates an unsolvable paradox (the hard problem) is the only proof
you should need to see it's wrong.

No. mate, you are simply ill-informed as to what the hard problem is. The
overwhelming consensus in consciences studies is that consciencesness is
entirely the result of electro-chemical systems in brain.essentially, no one
disputes this.

No one has any problem understanding how stupid the idea that
pseudo-socks is or how stupid the flying spaghetti monster is, but
yet, they can't seem to grasp that their beliefs, and confusions,
about consciousness is the same stupidity. I only wish more people
were actually able to think for themselves. If they were, there
wouldn't be such huge confusion in society over what consciousness
is. It persists only because most people learn to think like their
mentors instead of learning to think for themselves.

Have you actually ever been kicked in the balls? what is it in those brain
signals that hurt you?

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[ehsjr]

John Fields wrote:

On 26 Mar 2007 10:19:36 GMT, jasen <jasen@free.net.nz> wrote:


On 2007-03-25, John Fields <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote:


Other than physically moving the laser back and forth (toward and
away from the receiver) at an audio rate, just how would you propose
going about frequency modulating the laser?

Attach a mirror to a loudspeaker cone, it has less mass and you get twice as
much modulation, (but this is really phase modulation)


---
No, it's FM. What you get reflected is light of a slightly
different wavelength because of Doppler shift, so it's a change in
frequency/color.

Also, if the rate of change and the amplitude of the mechanical
motion is the same in both systems the carrier deviation will be
identical.

He needs to use the new mono==>multichromatic PLM (pulse
light modulator) chip. Rumor is that it will be announced
April 1 by Discoherent Industries Inc.

Ed

 

[Lawson English]

1Z wrote:

On 25 Mar, 00:35, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 22, Bob <bbx107....@excite.XYZ.com> wrote:



You are composed of cells, billions and billions. Each
cell follows the laws of chemistry, immutably - including
your brain cells. They just run along, minimizing the
Gibbs free energy, that's what molecules do.
More precisely, you are misrepresenting what the
laws of chemistry say.
If we accept the general intent of what you said or
meant to say, it is statistical. The importance of "random"
fluctuations to biology is increasingly appreciated.
Straw man.
Clearly, human behavior is very complex,
probably intractable. And likely, this is due
in large part to thermodynamic fluctuations.
Humans are noisy, messy sytems.
But that doesn't address the free will question.
The brain/mind may be chaotic and
unpredictable, but that doesn't mean you have
free will. You are still a mass of cells, governed
by the laws of chemistry.

You are governed by the laws of nature, inasmuch as they govern at
all.
FW requires a combination of indeterministic elbow-room and
rationality.
It the laws of nature are not strictly deterministic, the only
remaining hindrance to FW is achieving rationality
in spite of indeterminism. Individual indeterministic events are
obviously not rational, but the brain is very complex, so the question
resolves to the question of a very complex systems with
indeterministic elements would still be capable of
a good-enough degree of rationality.

Separate non-physical minds that cause matter to "swerve" don't come
into it.

Even if they COULD do that, would that prove free will?

 

[Robin Faichney]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:10:18 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
<kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote:

we can argue pretty
convincingly that simple systems are not conscious beyond reasonable doubt,
i.e. we can observe billions of simple systems.

This seems to imply that if something can be observed, it cannot be
conscious. Presumably that's not what you mean. I'm guessing what you
have in mind is, a simple system is one whose behaviour can be
predicted, and where behaviour is predictable, there's no
consciousness. But that conflates consciousness with "free will". I
think it quite likely that consciousness and the experience of "free
will" are closely related, but (a) we don't know that, perhaps there
could be a perfectly passive variety of consciousness, and (b) what
looks absolutely determined to us might not seem so to a sufficiently
simple, but conscious, system.
--
<http://www.robinfaichney.org/>

 

[Daryl McCullough]

Kevin Aylward says...

Daryl McCullough wrote:
Kevin Aylward says...

We say that feelings aren't physical. Memories aren't physical.
Ideas aren't physical. Qualia aren't physical. Tangible objects
are physical, intangible objects are not physical. But that's all
pure bull shit created by people that didn't even know we had a
physical brain.

Oh dear. Its clear that you just haven't thought this thing through
at all. A machine doesn't have "experience".

On what basis do you say that? I can understand how one could use
introspection as evidence that he has experience, what counts as
evidence that something *doesn't* have experience?

All due respect, here, but if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness, there will need to
do it without me. I don't have the time to engage in such pointless debates.

If the debate is about experience, then how in the world is it
pointless to ask how you know that something doesn't have experience?
I'm not arguing that a wind up watch has experience, I'm asking you
on what basis are you saying one way or the other? What counts as
evidence on such a question?

To quote someone else from this thread: "Its clear that you just haven't
thought this thing through at all."

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Robin Faichney]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:58:14 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
<kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote:

All due respect, here, but if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness, there will need to
do it without me. I don't have the time to engage in such pointless debates.

You don't think extreme cases can help to clarify principles?
--
<http://www.robinfaichney.org/>

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Curt Welch wrote:

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Curt Welch wrote:

Look, mate, suppose I kick you in the balls. Now explain to me how
inanimate electrons and protons give you that experience that you
attribute as pain. What is experience. The electrical impulses
co-incident with that kick in the balls simply does not explain the
fact that you don't like it. That it *hurts*.

Unfortunetaly for you, you can't present any evidence to support this
belief of yours.

Oh dear...

I don't have to prove anything because it is you who is suggesting
that pain is not explained by the electrical impulses. I say it is.
Prove me wrong.

Look, mate, you just aren't listening. I have already explained to you I
even gave you a link to the notion that all experience is due to physical
causes.

Yes, pain is the sole result of electrical-chemical actions in the brain.
No, measuring those actions does not explain what pain is, as experienced by
a conscious entity.

Show me the scientific experiment to prove what you suggest. If you
can't show it to me, then there is no evidence to support your
belief. It is, just a belief.

The argument you are making is the same as the God argument. You say
it's true (God exists) and since there is no evidence to disprove this
assumption, people believe it to be true simply because it seems like
a good thing to believe.

You believe my experience of pain isn't explained by the electrical
impulses but I don't. I also don't believe in God.

Nope. I have shown that any attempt to try an explain what it is
that is the actual "feeling" that you get with a kick in the balls,
is outwith the physics loop. Physics need a new axiom. Atoms dont
feel pain. You do.

Again, this is something, like a God, that you have simply chosen to
believe in. I don't. I believe physics explains everything we need
to know about what pain is.

But, I don't have to prove this. I don't have to be right, for you
to be wrong. What's wrong, is that you are trying to argue the truth
of a belief which has no supporting evidence. It just happens to be
something you have been trained to believe to be a truth. There is
no axiom, and there is no evidence, to support this idea which you
want to argue is a truth. It just something you have latched on to.


Sure, we can discuss various things a bout the brain without
mentioning experience, but that that doesn't mention experience,
which indeed exists, and doesn't exist in electrons, that which our
brains are constructed from.

It does exist in the behavior of electrons. You simply choose to
believe it doesn't even though there is no evidence to support this
belief.

err.. where is the evidence to support the notion that electrons feel pain?

I've argued these points for years so don't tell me I've not thought
about them.

Clearly with no success.

You can find over a 1000 messages posted by me on these
subjects in cap.


Many people today still believe that consciousness is something
other than just brain activity - or that it's something very unique
and special so it can't exist in anything else. But there's NO
evidence to suggest this.

Look, this is getting rather tiresome, why don't you go back and read
what has already been said in the posts. By repeating ideas as your
own, that have already been addressed in these posts, says much
about your credibility,

Because I haven't got the time today to deal with you. These posts
are all I have time for.

I've not read your posts. I've not read this thread. I read one
post, and I responded it. This post is the second post I've read and
probably the last of yours.

Read the 1000 posts I've already written on this subject in c.a.p.
before you accuse me of not reading posts.

To wit, your above comment is was adrresed here

http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/magic.html

It's just an urban legend passed down from

{snip more preaching to the converted}

looking at the evidence and forming their own opinion.

Consciousness can be defined in a non-circular way. It's brain
activity.

Nonsense. We can have brain activity without consciousness. Please
provide the detailed electrical activity that distinguishes a
conscious response from an autonomous response. Then provide proof
that those details are the correct one. We wouldn't want to kill the
wrong thing now would we.

You first. Prove to me that the things you suggest are true. You
started this, not me.

You say we can have brain activity without consciousness. How can you
prove that? It's totally fucking impossible.

I have already explained, that science doesn't care about proof.

There are drugs that make our memory stop working. They prevent us
from remembering what happened to us or what type of conscious
experience we were having 10 minutes in the past. Where they
consciousness at that time? If they can't remember it does that means
they weren't conscious? I think most people would argue that they
were conscious but that they simply couldn't remember it.

I don't. Most say they were unconscious.

So how can you judge if brain activity in a person is conscious brain
activity or not? If they "wake up" later, and you ask them if they
have a memory of what was happening and they say they have no memory,
were they conscious? There's no way to tell.

You have a valid point, in principle, however, they are unconscious by
definition. The result is indistinguishable. Occums razor is good enough for
me on this one.

The type of stuff you are calling "consciousness" can't be measured
externally because you haven't defined what consciousness is to a
point of

Along the lines of no awareness, no memory of awareness,.

If you choose to reject that definition, then you are the
one that are choosing to believe it can't be defined simply because
you choose to reject the only definition that fits the facts.

See above, you are so way of base its unreal.

No, I'm just way off from the way you what to think about these
things. What you don't grasp, is that you have no foundation to stand
on to justify your position. It's just what you happen to want to
believe.

I don't mind when people realize that they have no leg to stand on in
these arguments and simply concludes with, "well, this is what I want
to believe and I'm sticking to it". But when someone tries to argue
the are right based on facts, when there are no facts to argue from,
I get irritated.

You are very irritating. And in turn, I'm trying to be as irritating
to you as you are to me.

Most religious people are smart enough to know their believes aren't
facts, but simply faith. You don't seem to understand that yet.
Your arguments here are all faith based.

I happen to know my beliefs about this are also faith based. Not
faith in a god, but faith in physics.

One doesn't require faith in physical. One has empirical observations.

We don't have the proof yet to
show who is right. I just have faith that I'm right. Other people
have faith that their ideas about consciousness are right.

But what I know for a fact is true, is that you don't have any proof
to back up you belief that electrons don't experience pain

Well, if you want to believe electrons feel pain, feel free to do so.

because
you have no way to define what pain is. I do. Read my 1000 posts in
c.a.p. if you want the answer.

I can make an operational definition of any emotion.
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/emotions.html

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Daryl McCullough]

Kevin Aylward says...

The word "experience" in consciousness contexts mean the things that only
conscious entities have. Like, a kick in the balls *hurts*.

You see a colour and it makes an impression that you are "aware" of,
sensations, etc. Its impossible to give a circular free definition
of any of theses terms, because, as I have noted, its all circular.

We just have to assume as an axiom "consciousness " exits,
and go from there. Just as we do in any other science.

No, it's not the way we do in any other science. You are introducing
a new quality of systems called "consciousness". If you really want
it to be a *scientific* concept, then you have to ask questions such
as: How do we detect whether a system has this quality? A scientist
would never say something like

"if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness,
there will need to do it without me.

That isn't a scientific attitude, at all. You introduce a supposedly
scientific property of matter, and then without any experiment or
argument, you rule out a possibility and declare it beyond the pale
to argue for that possibility. What a thoroughly unscientific attitude!

That would *never* happen in physics. Why, when you are dealing with
concepts that are much murkier, more ill-defined than those physicists
typically deal with, you are *more* unshakably certain in your beliefs?
The hallmark of science if *falsifiabilty*. It is the possibility of
changing your mind based on evidence. You don't seem to allow for such
a possibility, so what you're doing isn't science.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Daryl McCullough]

Lawson English says...

Daryl McCullough wrote:
Bob Myers says...

...I would again point out
that we have no way of directly demonstrating "experience"
or "feelings" in ANYONE but ourselves - therefore, I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else. The rest of you may be
all zombies for all I know (which would raise troubling questions
about where you all came from, and why I'M here, but at
least it IS a possibility!).

I don't see how such a possibility has any meaning.
What would it *mean* for someone else to lack "feelings"
or "experience"?


WE can identify people with extreme forms of this: they're called
autistic or sociopathic and so on. They lack the physical structures
associated with feelings and certain kinds of experience.

These are two different issues. One issue is whether there are
observable differences in behavior which can be explained in terms
of postulated brain states called "feelings". The second issue is
whether it makes sense for two people with *identical* behavior may
still be distinguished by claiming that one has "feelings" and the
other doesn't.

In the first case, "feelings" play an explanatory role in what we
observe. In the second case, they explicitly play *no* role in what
we observe. I can make sense of the first use of the word "feelings"
but not the second.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Lawson English]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

Lawson English says...
Daryl McCullough wrote:
Bob Myers says...

...I would again point out
that we have no way of directly demonstrating "experience"
or "feelings" in ANYONE but ourselves - therefore, I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else. The rest of you may be
all zombies for all I know (which would raise troubling questions
about where you all came from, and why I'M here, but at
least it IS a possibility!).
I don't see how such a possibility has any meaning.
What would it *mean* for someone else to lack "feelings"
or "experience"?

WE can identify people with extreme forms of this: they're called
autistic or sociopathic and so on. They lack the physical structures
associated with feelings and certain kinds of experience.

These are two different issues. One issue is whether there are
observable differences in behavior which can be explained in terms
of postulated brain states called "feelings". The second issue is
whether it makes sense for two people with *identical* behavior may
still be distinguished by claiming that one has "feelings" and the
other doesn't.

In the first case, "feelings" play an explanatory role in what we
observe. In the second case, they explicitly play *no* role in what
we observe. I can make sense of the first use of the word "feelings"
but not the second.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

It's a very muddy idea as you present it. Even spiritual traditions that
believe in souls and reincarnation and so on speak in terms of "subtle
bodies" and the like. If there is no differentiation, there is no
separate existence and hence no consciousness or emotions or whatevers.


Odo from Deep Space 9 only exists as Odo when he manifests separately
from the Great Ocean of Being (orwhateveritscalled).

 

[RichD]

On Mar 24, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:

There is no physics experiment that you can design and run, which has
a different outcome depending on whether consciousness is present in the
experiment or not.

Uh, no.
This is what you need to do, if you think consciousness
matters to physics. You need to design some physics
experiment in a black box. Once it is running,
you can't look into the black box room. There will be two
of them. They are identical black boxes, except one has
a consciousness in it, and the other doesn't.

You need to design the physics experiment so
that the black box outputs a 0 if and only if there
is no consciousness in the room, and a 1 if and only
if there is a consciousness in the room.

It is not possible to design this physics experiment
such that the black box has different outcomes
depending on whether the human inside is conscious,
or a vegetable.

The glaring weakness of your argument is that you
haven't defined what consciousness is... how you
gonna know, whether you see it or not? i.e. if a
box emits '1', on what basis will you deny the
result? It's all a bit fuzzy, Don.

Anyhow, I can describe a germane experiment,
which has been performed:

The usual electron double slit apparatus.
Electrons are emitted from a cathode,
sequentially, where each electron is fired
after the previous one has struck the screen.

There is a detector at each slit, attached to a
recording device, which counts the number
detected.

case i) Both detectors are off (removed
entirely, if you wish).
Result: interference pattern, electrons
behave like waves.

case ii) Both detectors are operational.
Result: no interference pattern, electrons
behave like particles.

case iii) One detector on, the other off.
Result: same as case (ii)

Cogitate upon case (iii), particularly compared
to case (ii). I claim this satisfies your challenge -
it demonstrates some interaction between the
observer's mind, and nature. It cannot be
explained by "interaction between measuring
device and object".

Call it 'consciousness' or whatever, it's real...
and very weird...

--
Rich

 

[RichD]

On Mar 26, Lawson English <Laws...@nowhere.none> wrote:

Separate non-physical minds that cause matter to
"swerve" don't come into it.

Even if they COULD do that, would that prove free will?

Yes. That's the instrumental test.

--
Rich

 

[Lawson English]

RichD wrote:

On Mar 26, Lawson English <Laws...@nowhere.none> wrote:
Separate non-physical minds that cause matter to
"swerve" don't come into it.
Even if they COULD do that, would that prove free will?

Yes. That's the instrumental test.

--
Rich

How so? "Free will" means there is no way to predict which way the thing
will swerve because the free willed might "decide" arbitrarily to send
it some other way. The fact that the non-physical mind can send things
one way or the other doesn't say ANYTHING about how predictable this
non-corporeal entity is.

I mean, poltergeists are allegedly incorporeal entities that can cause
objects to move, but by definition, poltergeists aren't genuine people,
but just stuff leftover from a violent death or whatever. Why should
incorporeal minds prove or disprove free will?

 

[RichD]

On Mar 24, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Now try and define "aware" independently of consciousness.
Have you actually read my paper?
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/thehardproblem.html

Kevin, it's bad form (desperation, really) to
cite YOUR OWN WEB PAGE!

"I refer you to this authoritative source, which
supports my position completely..."

The universe and everything in it however isn't circular -

It indeed is.This is in fact very well known and understood.

oh dear
The foundations of science crumble, the
structure sways...

F = d(mv)/dt, or F=ma, if one isnt up the math
How do we define mass and force independently of
each other? Good luck mate in your effort.

oh dear
Sounds fiendishly difficult.

But wait... there's another fellow we might
consult, almost as smart as yourself...
Feynman, by surname.. no longer animate,
but thanks to the miracle of the written word...

He discusses this very question, in his
"Lectures" (what an amazing coincidence!).
What we do, we bang things together, of
various sizes and materials, and watch how
they bounce. From this, we derive the
concept of inertia, quantified as mass.
After that, we define force.

Circular reaoning avoided, the universe is
saved, Jesus loves us!

If you actually knew anything about physics
you would understand this point.

lol!

With each memo, you dig the hole deeper and
deeper... I figure you're halfway to China at this point...

--
Rich