From: Randall Randall (randall@randallsquared.com)
Date: Thu Mar 05 2009 - 15:13:19 MST
On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 01:39:45PM -0800, Matt Mahoney wrote:
> --- On Thu, 3/5/09, John K Clark <johnkclark@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > And by the way, what logical argument?
>
> For one, if you try to draw a line between what is conscious and what is not, I can force you to draw it through an infinitesimally small region. For example, one person posted that they believed that if they were killed instantly during teleportation then they would become the copy, but not if they were killed 5 minutes later. OK, what about 1 minute? At exactly what femtosecond boundary is the critical point?
You can do the same with calculation. Calculators calculate, and rocks
don't. But wait, if two rocks are dislodged by water and roll into two
other rocks, has the water-rock system not "calculated" four? I think
most people would say it hasn't. We may or may not discover a process
in the brain which essentially *is* consciousness. Oddly, you and John
appear to agree that we won't, but I expect we will, at some point,
figure out how consciousness works. I think it's far more of a leap
of faith to assume that we'll eventually understand how the brain works
and still not be able to pin down exactly what gives rise to the self.
-- Randall
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