Re: Does Searle's "Chinese Room" argument imply that consciousness is non-scientific?
- From: "Alpha" <OmegaZero2003@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:54:08 -0700
PS:
1) It isn't blobs of ink and cellulose atoms that make you want to read War
and Peace, it is the meaning - something that exists that is *other than*
"just* the atoms of ink and cellulose. I.e., Meaning over and above "just"
the atoms has causal power in Universe and thereby constitutes existence as
much as atoms behaviing do.
2) And why choose "atoms behaving" as your preferred level of description,
to which you anchor everything? Why not molecules behaving? (We know that
many molecules *cannot* be reduced to the attributes/behavior of the
constituent atoms due to emergence). Or why not choose quantum fields
behaving! After all, it is not "solid" objects like "atoms behaving" that
are important - it is the interacting fields (LCAO/LCMO theory). Even more
"reduced" and bottomed-out than "atoms"! (And reduction, as every schoolboy
knows, is a lossy process.)
"Alpha" <OmegaZero2003@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46fbb26d$0$26497$88260bb3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20070927033019.409$RN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Alpha" <OmegaZero2003@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20070926015537.569$bs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I just don't believe in dualism. It's inconsistent with everything we
know
about the universe so I choose to believe we are not dualistic. I
believe that the physical world, and the mental world, are not two
separate things,
but that they are one and the same thing.
Perhaps better put: One thing with two (or more) very different aspects;
1. the machinations of atoms, moelecules, cells and fields etc., and 2.
the psychological machinations of which we are all familiar. All
arranged
in "strange loops", hierarchies, feedback/feedforward loops and complex
adaptive "subsystems/systems".
Clocks have different aspects than radios, which have different aspects
from a T-shirt which has different aspects from a diamond ring which have
different aspects from a brain.
Those are all *different* things/processes.
Brain/mind refers to a *single* (not different like a clock and a radio)
entity that has many levels of description, *including* atoms, including
fields, including macromolecules, including cells/neurons and AP patterns
(which are *different* than the description using atoms etc.), including
psychological faculties (which, again, is different than descriptions
using atom or molecules). Which level is the "just" or "merely" level (as
in "just atoms") is an arbitrary pick! The level of description you
choose to focus upon is context dependent.
Everything has different aspects which we
can sense. That's how we know they are different. However, the
foundation
of all their aspects, is the normal stuff of physics (atoms and their
fields of interaction, etc.). The only difference in all these items, is
how their atoms interact because of the different structures created by
atoms.
Vive la difference!!! It is differences that make a difference and
thereby create information! And information content changes/increases in
complexity as one goes up the hierarchy of description.
What I reject as being so unlikely it's not even work talking about
(except
for the fact that a huge percentage of the world doesn't reject it so I
keep having to talk about it), is the belief that consciousness is
anything
other than just more of the same - the behavior of atoms.
Where, in atoms behaving is "Love" or computers or my wanting pizza
tonight instead of meatloaf? You need to read Hofstadter's book on
strange loops. And get some common sense.
--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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