Re: Does Searle's "Chinese Room" argument imply that consciousness is non-scientific?


"JGCASEY" <jgkjcasey@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1190963000.755996.174990@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sep 28, 2:22 pm, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:
JGCASEY <jgkjca...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 28, 3:29 am, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:

...

The brain infers a physical world from its experiences
(internal events) constructed from its sensory inputs but
those experiences are not themselves contained in the
sensory input and thus not part of the inferred model of
the physical world.



Huh? That makes no sense to me.

I meant it is not part of the inferred scientific model
of the world. It is true that a naive view is that color
exists "out there" but now we know it only exists as
some kind of neural coding process in the brain.

You once suggested that because we cannot see thoughts
"out there" we assumed that they were due to our soul
but if we had a brain scanner we could see our thoughts
were really nothing but neural activity.

That they are caused by the same thing may be true
but that they are the are the same experience is
not true.

If I pinch your skin and you see a spike in the
brain scanner display that spike would not have
the qualities you felt when pinched, it would merely
correlate with the pain experience.

Yes - correlation and/or correspondence should not be conflated with
identity relationships or causes; an egregious error Curt makes constantly.
Oh Well!



How do you know if you are dreaming or not?


No one I've met knows when they are dreaming. They only
know it after the fact when they wake up.

Another of Curt's "blinders-on" idiotic staements.


Well such people exist and I am one of them. Sometimes
I know I am dreaming. I know I am asleep in bed and am
experiencing a world purely of my imagination. It is
called vivid dreaming.

Or lucid dreaming; I too know when I am dreaming sometimes, while dreaming.


Dreams are as real as normal reality because they are
the same for us - it's all neural activity.

Yes it is all neural activity but neural activity during
dreaming is not the same KIND of neural activity while
awake and alert to your environment.

The fact I can realise I am dreaming means dreaming is
different to me than being awake. Even when in full color
with sounds and touch I can tell they aren't real. They
are more like imagining things in your mind's eye.


...

What kind of physical world would you
infer if your only input was a binary switch? How could
it change as the number and value states of those inputs
were increased?


Switches are normally seen as output devices, not input
devices.

Really? The first computer I built had a row of toggle
switches for input and a row of LED's for output. My little
robot had switches for input (touch) and motors for output.

Indeed - if that statement of Curt's is another indication of the depth of
his knowledge of things engineering and science, he is in big trouble. A
switch can be either - it is *orthogonal* to the notion of input and output
per se.




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