On Nov 19, 2008, at 1:43 PM, Brent Meeker wrote:
> So I'm puzzled as to how answer Bruno's question. In general I
> don't believe in
> zombies, but that's in the same way I don't believe my glass of
> water will
> freeze at 20degC. It's an opinion about what is likely, not what is
> possible.
I take this to mean that you're uncomfortable with thought experiments
which revolve around logically possible but exceedingly unlikely
events. I think that's understandable, but ultimately, I'm on the
philosopher's side. It really is logically possible - although
exceedingly unlikely - for a random-number-generator to cause a robot
to walk around, talk to people, etc. It really is logically possible
for a computer program to use a random-number-generator to generate a
lattice of changing bits that "follows" Conway's Life rule. Mechanism
and materialism needs to answer questions about these scenarios,
regardless of how unlikely they are.
-- Kory
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Received on Thu Nov 20 2008 - 03:16:42 PST