Re: Problem for physicalist evolutionists

On 26 Mar, 18:38, someone2 <glenn.spig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 26 Mar, 18:10, Nic <harrisonda...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On 26 Mar, 13:33, Inez <savagemouse...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 26, 3:18 am, n...@xxxxxx (Eric Rowley) wrote:

From: someone2 <glenn.spig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

<snip>

Do you accept that both theories predict the same behaviour for
the mechanism (the one that suggests there is "a what it is like"
to be the robot, and the one that suggests there isn't)? Do you
also accept that if the functionalists were asked how they would
expect the mechanism to behave if their theory was wrong, and
there wasn't a "what it was like" to be the robot that they would
be expecting it to behave just the same?

Do you really think that asking the same question over and
over again will eventually get you the answer you want?

That works for a child on a trip asking "Are we there yet?" every
30 seconds but only because the car is moving towards its destination
and will eventually arrive there.

This "discusion" is going nowhere because you refuse to answer
questions, comply with requests for clairification of your
viewpoint and examples or support or even admit to your assumptions.

(Clue: both agree on the known laws of physics, and know build of
the mechanism, and both think the build will follow the known
laws of physics)

(Clue: you have failed to support your hypotheisis that following
the laws of physics is incompatable with influential experiences.
Or even explain how it is even possible for a neural/nodal state
(the phenomenal experience c.f. Professor Place) to be unavailable
for further neural/nodal processing (determining behaviour) in an
interconected network of neurons/nodes.)

Note also that those who say that only organic chemicals can produce
qualia are talking through their hats. The "laws of physics" are not
giving them any reason to reach that conclusion, they just made it up
and claim it to be true for no reason.

Ironically, that seems to me a very succinct version of someone2's
argument, making me think he thinks all physicalist theories of mind
are like that. Notice how he reads that into Crick and Koch, except
that for them (according to someone2) it is a special kind of cell
rather than a special kind of chemical.

Functionalists proper know they must not fall into that trap, have not
fallen into it, and therefore don't need someone2's offer of
metaphysical help to get out of it.

The paper can be read at:

http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/Elsevier-NCC.html

See in section 4, the alternative hypothesis:
--------------
What is the character of the NCC? Most popular has been the belief
that consciousness arises as an emergent property of a very large
collection of interacting neurons (for instance, Libet 1993). In this
view, it would be foolish to locate consciousness at the level of
individual neurons. An alternative hypothesis is that there are
special sets of ``consciousness" neurons distributed throughout cortex
and associated systems. Such neurons represent the ultimate neuronal
correlate of consciousness, in the sense that the relevant activity of
an appropriate subset of them is both necessary and sufficient to give
rise to an appropriate conscious experience or percept (Crick and Koch
1998). Generating the appropriate activity in these neurons, for
instance by suitable electrical stimulation during open skull surgery,
would give rise to the specific percept.
--------------

So do you think I misrepresented what they were saying when I
suggested in the article onwww.answernot42.com:

Not at all. Over the weekend, I was reading some of their stuff
precisely because this needs checking. It turns out that they, like
yourself, don't say whether these NCC cells are special because of
*what* they are or because of *where* they are plugged in.

A cell type with a particular connectivity context is, for
developmental reasons, likely to also be a different cell type per
se. So Crick and Koch had no need to court philosophical controversy
by saying one way or the other.

In their "A Framework for Consciousness" (Feb 2003), their eventual
favourite for the NCC emerges as "pyramidal cells projecting to the
front of the brain". Notice the downstream causal context in that
phrase.

Section 4: "A node, all by itself, cannot produce consciousness. Even
if the neurons within that node were firing appropriately, this would
produce little effect if their output synapses were inactivated."

However, they do acknowledge that "firing style" could have been
relevant (that's an idea they once entertained, but no longer do/
did). In particular, they once thought that synchronous firing in
different parts of the brain could be what binds them in to a single
conscious event.

So I found room for either interpretaion (unless anyone has got any
better quotes). And upon rereading your article, I found that maybe
it was just me assuming you meant the cells are special in essence
rather than in function.

Can I take it you are now confirming your Theory R to be based on
'essence' e.g. special cells, special organic compounds, special
quantum micro-tubule hoodoo, etc?


--------------
They suggest, along the lines suggested by Christof Koch and Francis
Crick in their paper on The Neuronal Basis of Consciousness (1999),
that there must be a physical difference between neurones that
contribute to conscious experience, and those that don't.
---------------

.

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