To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/10/01 11:19
Subject: Re: !Consciousness (was Re: [K-list] Nature
From: Martin Thompson
On 1999/10/01 11:19, Martin Thompson posted thus to the K-list:
18:48:13 Fri, 1 Oct 1999
Ville Vainio at Ville Vainio <vvainioATnospamtp.spt.fi> writes:
>On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Martin Thompson wrote:
>
>> This is exactly the problem: from outside, we can't tell. This shows
>> that a critical piece of knowledge about the nature of consciousness is
>> missing: how can we tell from the configuration of matter and energy
>> whether something is conscious or not? At present, we can't tell whether
>> something is conscious, or just claims to be.
>
>What does it matter, if some thing is conscious and other is not?
>Consciousness is just a word, and mostly based on erroneous reasoning. If
>we take reality as the starting point, there is no such thing as
>consciousness (as an opposite of not-consciousness, that is).
>
It seems to me that I am conscious, as I seem to have experiences.
That's how I define it.
>> A God would know, as Gods are supposed to know that sort of thing
>> (everything).
>
>I take that as a joke (as Gods do not "know".. people with neuronal
>activity say they "know" stuff).
>
Yes.
>> Yes. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that consciousness arises in
>> the brain, and is presumably generated there somehow. But, so far, no
>> explanations that I've heard or read seem to solve the problem of how.
>
>It's the ego that prevents you from seeing "how". It's quite simple,
>really. It just can't be explained with words in any satisfactory way.
>
That's no good to me, then.
>> Artificial intelligence answers generally bypass this question of
>> experience - Dennett, for example ("Consciousness Explained"), just says
>> that that is what it feels like to be a brain. Well, yes, but *how*? The
>> interface from matter to experience may be simply a fundamental property
>> of the Universe, as Dennett appears to imply, but that seems like an
>
>I believe experience is not a fundamental property of universe in any way.
>It's just stuff that happens. Matter doing the thing matter does.
>
To me, that means that it is a fundamental property (much like
electromagnetism, or space-time). Or perhaps you mean that it is just an
effect, a by-product, like light from the Sun is a by-product of fusion.
>> unsatisfactory explanation to me: "it just is." I don't get an "Aha!"
>> experience from that.
>
>Forget the consciousness and experience, and focus your attention on the
>matter alone. See if you would get the "Aha!" matter-movement from that.
>Hard-core materialism is the closest western approximation of the wisdom
>of the east - too bad its advocates don't usually see the spiritual
>dimension in it, and turn to nihilists.
>
I fully accept Western materialism. Its results are easily demonstrable
in any suitably equipped laboratory, so hearsay is minimised (but not
eliminated, of course). But I want to extend it to areas it fails to
explain as well, such as consciousness - or find alternative
explanations.
>> >How do you know *you* have any experiences the robot doesn't have? Is it
>> >the ego working its magic?
>> >
>> All I know is that I have experiences. I can't tell whether the robot,
>
>Of course you have experiences - the mistake you make is (IMHO) labeling
>them "experiences", and giving them a special place in your database.
>
The special place is that they don't have an adequate explanation in
physics, as yet.
>> To have solved the problem of consciousness, it must be necessary to
>> be able to show unambiguously whether any given entity is conscious or
>> not.
>
>The straightforward solution: nothing is conscious. Consciousness doesn't
>mean anything. If you can get an intuitive grasp of this idea, it's
>extremely liberating and blissful. In the Samadhi experience one sees that
>Everything is conscious, which is the same thing as Nothing is conscious
>(ie. the attribute "conscious" is useless... kinda like saying everything
>is everything).
It is strange, because this is clearly true - yet consciousness doesn't
seem like that.
--
Martin Thompson martinATnospamtucana.demon.co.uk
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.tucana.demon.co.uk
Free Regular Income: http://www.virtualis.com/vr/mthomps4/vrp.html
"Everything I do and say with anyone makes a difference." Gita Bellin
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