RE: Heed Clarification on MW

From: Niclas Thisell <niclas.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 11:29:47 +0100

Fred Chen wrote in part
> If consciousness were the same for all SAS's including ants
> and humans,
> ant consciousness must be very low indeed, so that even their higher
> numbers don't improve the odds of being an ant. Your argument can also
> be inverted to state why can't we be more highly evolved beings with
> higher consciousness, so to speak.
>
> It is probably impossible to measure degree of consciousness like a
> physical quantity. Ant consciousness can be something totally
> different
> from human consciousness. It is tempting to project human
> consciousness
> into other consciousness. This may or may not be justified. We don't
> know.

Agreed. I guess one could try to use "amount of human consciousness"
instead. A simulated brain could perhaps reach a fairly high measure -
somewhere in the neighbourhood of a human. But if you crank up the
number of neurons and connections, this number would actually decrease.
As would it if you morph it, neuron by neuron, to, say, a dolphin's
brain.

Also, even assuming an absolute measure is nonsensical, I think it's
safe to say that my relative degree of consciousness is a lot lower when
I'm asleep or unconscious. This neatly explains the first-person
observation that everybody else snores, whereas I don't.

Anyway, I'm mainly just kidding around here - sorry to pollute your
newsgroup.

Best regards,
Niclas Thisell
Received on Thu Dec 16 1999 - 02:27:01 PST