On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 08:40:20PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
> Russell Standish writes:
>
> > This is also a response to one of Bruno's comments.
> >
> > When talking about minds, the self/other boundary need not occur on
> > the biological boundary (skin). I would say that when dreaming, or
> > hallucinating, the random firing we perceive as coming from our input
> > centres (visual cortex for instance) is coming from outside our minds
> > (although still within our heads).
>
> What if I'm not dreaming or hallucinating but just thinking abstract thoughts
> about number theory or philosophy. I'm conscious, but I don't necessarily have
> any sense of input from outside myself, whether real or imagined. I could live my
> whole life like this, and if I ever suspected that something other than my own mind
> existed it would be just another theory created by my mind on its own.
>
I find it hard to imagine this being possible without any form of
input. Most philosophers would need books, or at least an internet
connection to plato.stanford.edu.
What you're suggesting is something like Tegmark's smart baby that
figures out the grand unified theory of everything before it has
learnt to talk. Is this possible? Not so sure....
Cheers
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder.domain.name.hidden
Australia
http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Wed Nov 22 2006 - 16:26:39 PST