To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/09/28 06:44
Subject: Re: [K-list] Nature
From: Ville Vainio
On 1999/09/28 06:44, Ville Vainio posted thus to the K-list:
On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Martin Thompson wrote:
> >> we, the Universe, "knows" things. We are the Universe discovering
> >> itself.
> >
> >I would say we are we, discovering the universe.
> That is one way of looking at it; but it seems to assume that we are
> separate from the rest of the Universe rather than an integral part of
> it.
True. What I meant was that we are discovering our unity with the
universe. When we discover the universe, we also discover that we are not
seperate from it.
> Now, clearly, consciousness arises in the brain somehow, but so far
> science has apparently completely failed to come up with a mechanism
> that makes sense. Neuronal activity is just that: neuronal activity.
As far as brain is concerned, science has not come to any sensible results
yet. It's only a matter of time (possible a long time), though.
> It is *not* an experience, in the same way that a recipe is not a
> meal. The link between the matter and the experience of it is missing
> from current theories. If I write a complex computer program to mimic
> neuronal activity, there is still nothing to show whether the computer
> is conscious or not.
If there was a god that "wrote" us, how would he know that we are
sentient? Just because we say we are? Your computer program could do that
too. There is nothing to show us if we are conscious or not. Even the
complex computer program could have an idea that states that "I am
sentient, since I feel like that". And who are we to argue it?
> >4) It's natural for the DNA-vessels (us) to believe consciousness is
> >something "special" - the belief is hard-coded into DNA, again for the
> >sake of survival I would say. However, it is possible to transcend this
> >illusion (not just scientifically, but intuitively) by plunging into the
> >uncharted DNA-waters (mysticism). DNA holds loads of undocumented/not
> >normally experienced features as we kundalites know very well.
> It doesn't matter whether consciousness is "special." The question is,
In this context it does, as seeing consciousness as a thing that reaches
beyond CNS-activity really makes it "special".
> how does it work? Pointing at molecules or complex programs, as
> scientists and AI experts are prone to do, and saying "that's how"
> doesn't actually explain anything. It is a logical error of types or
> categories (recipe .NE. meal; electrical activity .NE. experience;
> objective .NE. subjective).
It is not a logical error if we are not trying to force it into the
stray-jacket of logic of terminology (which is a language, which is - at
least on this list - often agreed to be insufficient). Just as there is
nothing to suggest that god (in the xian sense) exists, there is nothing
to suggest that experience would come from outside the human skull. It is
possible to experience "infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in
an hour", but this also happens in our brain. And brain is not that
shallow a place, after all. Crafting various obscure pseudo-scientific and
New Age-explanations for consciousness is going to lead us astray, cause
harmful attachment, and we will end up in the "right" result through a
much longer route.
> It is easy to imagine a complex robot that can behave much as humans do,
> but it is not clear how such a machine would have any experiences
> because we have no idea at all how to give it that capacity.
How do you know *you* have any experiences the robot doesn't have? Is it
the ego working its magic?
> Quite correct. You are obviously a Zen master!
I hope that was a compliment, instead of irony... my common-law wife likes
to make jokes about that ;-).
BTW, here I have been mostly rephrasing what I have already written in my
web page, at http://www.tp.spt.fi/~vvainio/k/determ.htm
Ville Vainio - vvainioATnospamtp.spt.fi http://www.tp.spt.fi/~vvainio
We're all puppets
The first step on the path to understanding is seeing the strings
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