From: Krekoski Ross (rosskrekoski@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2008 - 13:14:07 MST
--- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com wrote:
The argument fails because it is based on the unproven assumption that
> consciousness exists. What exists is a universal belief in consciousness.
> But there is no objective test for consciousness. We should not assume
> that a
> rational posthuman intelligence will share this belief.
>
> Your brain is a computer. It will believe whatever it is programmed to
> believe.
>
Yes, I agree that the fluffy-bunny view of consciousness should certainly be
distinguished from rationality, and that it makes sense to treat them
separately, and not coimplicative of each other.
Its an interesting possibility,that I am programmed to believe that I am
conscious. However, if that is so, then there exists somewhere in my mental
architecture, a formalization of what consciousness is, or it would be
impossible to program me to believe that such is attributive of me. If the
formalization exists, it is integrable with other formal logic. If the
formalization does not exist, then I am not overtly programmed to believe I
am conscious, and it is therefore a higher-level emergent phenomenon, a
distinct level of organization. Either case the argument holds.
Rgds,
Ross
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:02 MDT