Colin Hales writes:
> > the fact that
> > intelligent behaviour is third person observable but consciousness is
> > not.
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> OK. Let me get this straight. Scientist A stares at something, say X,
> with consciousness. A sees X. Scientist A posits evidence of X from a
> third person viewpoint. Scientist A confers with Scientist B. Scientist B
> then goes and stares at X and agrees. Both of these people use
> consciousness to come to this conclusion.
>
> Explicit Conclusion : "Yep, theres an X!"
>
> Yet there's no evidence of consciousness?.... that which literally enabled
> the entire process? There is an assumption at work....
>
> "SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE"
> and
> "CONTENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS"
>
> Are NOT identities.
>
> When you 'stare' at anything at all you have evidence of consciousness.
> It's what gives you the ability to 'stare' in the first place. It's
> blaring at you from every facet of your being. Without consciousness you
> would never have had anything to bring to a discussion in the first place.
> Yes, when you stare at a brain you don't 'see' conciousness.... but holy
> smoke you have evidence blaring by the act of seeing the brain at all!
(a) I know I'm conscious
(b) I know that you are intelligent, unless my senses are tricking me
(c) I assume that you are conscious but I don't know this, even if I can be sure
my senses are not tricking me, in the same way as I know (a) and (b).
To give another example, we know that many animals are intelligent from
observing their behaviour, but there is often speculation as to whether they
are conscious and what their conscious experience might be like, even though
we might understand and be able to predict their behaviour at least as well as
the behaviour of fellow humans.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sun Aug 27 2006 - 02:05:59 PDT