Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?

From: David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:40:59 -0000

On Jun 19, 5:09 am, Russell Standish <l....domain.name.hidden> wrote:

> David, I was unable to perceive a question in what you just wrote. I
> haven't a response, since (sadly) I was unable to understand what you
> were talking about. :(

Really? I'm surprised, but words can indeed be very slippery in this
context. Oh, well. To condense: my argument is intended to pump the
intuition that a 'primitive' (or 'reduced') notion of 'sensing' (or
please substitute anything that carries the thrust of 'able to
locate', 'knows it's there', etc.) is already inescapably present in
the notion of 'interaction' between fundamental 'entities' in any
feasible model of reality. Else, how could we claim that they retain
any coherent sense of being 'in contact'? And, if not 'in contact',
how 'interact'? So in essence, this is a semantic intuition: that the
root concept of 'interaction' *tacitly includes* 'sensing' as a
*logical prerequisite* of 'contact' in an inescapable manner to which
we have become *semantically blind*. So I propose such a primitive
but unavoidable 'hybrid' as the conceptual basis on which any higher-
order emergent process, including those embodying reflexive self-
consciousness, logically supervenes. I suppose this is a sort of 'non-
optional panpsychism': participating in such a reality, your nature
embraces 'action with sensing' down to its very roots.

If this intuition could be developed into something more rigorous, it
would have the (startling) consequence that any 'physical' explanation
that explicitly excluded the primitive 'sensing' component of 'action-
with-sensing' would be incomplete - i.e. no process founded on it
could actually work *at all*. This is a 'philosophical', or semantic/
logical analysis, not science, of course. But I think you may agree
that if it has any merit, it would have some interesting
implications. So my question is, do you think it has any merit, or is
simply wrong, indeterminate, or gibberish? And why?

David

> On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 11:17:50PM -0000, David Nyman wrote:
>
> > All this has massive implications for issues of will (free or
> > otherwise), suffering, software uploading of minds, etc., etc. - which
> > I've indicated in other posts. Consequently, I'd be really interested
> > in your response, because AFAICS this must be either right(ish),
> > wrong(ish), or not-even-wrong(ish). But if right(ish), potentially it
> > gives us a basis for speaking the same language, even if my suggested
> > vocabulary is jettisoned for an improved version. It's certainly
> > intended to be Occamish.
>
> > David
>
> David, I was unable to perceive a question in what you just wrote. I
> haven't a response, since (sadly) I was unable to understand what you
> were talking about. :(
>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco....domain.name.hidden
> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


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Received on Tue Jun 19 2007 - 05:41:08 PDT

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