On 28/08/07, marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden <marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden.com> wrote:
> > What if someone simply claimed that they couldn't see how circulation
> > was the same as cardiovascular activity: they could understand that
> > the heart was a pump, the blood a fluid, the blood vessels conduits,
> > but the circulatory system as a whole was something emergent and not
> > at all obvious, in the same way that mind was emergent. Alternatively,
> > a superintelligent being could claim that the mind was as obviously
> > the result of brain activity as circulation was the result of
> > cardiovascular activity.
>
>
> Alternatively a superintelligent being might be quick to castigate you
> for your stupidly and claim that I am right *sarcastic*. We have to
> look at the facts based on the information at hand, not 'what if'.
> You haven't answered the essential point, endorsed by one of the most
> respected scientists in the world, Ray Kurzweil.
Kurzweil is a well-known populariser, but I don't know that he
deserves to be called "one of the most respected scientists in the
world."
> This point is that
> there's an essential difference between specific physical properties
> (which can be objectively measured - as in the the exmaple of
> circulation), and subjective experiences, which are not reducible to
> specific physical properties (subjective experiences are a
> *mathematical pattern* , and the same pattern could be enacted on
> anything- you could have intelligent silicon, rocks, clouds or
> anything. Further thesse patterns cannot be directly objectively
> measured.
>
> If I would only make one essential argument here it is:
>
> It's known for a fact that there exist mathematical concepts (infinite
> sets) which are indispensible to our explanations of reality but which
> can't be explained in terms of any finite physical processes. This is
> as clear-cut proof of the existence of non-material properties as
> you're ever likely to see! Mathematical concepts simply are not
> replaceable with physical descriptions. And subjective experiences
> are precisely *mathemetical patterns*.
There is this sense in which the pattern is something over and above
the physical substrate of its implementation. Would you say that the
mind is to the brain as squareness is to a square-shaped table?
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Aug 28 2007 - 05:27:21 PDT