Rex Allen wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>>> As such, I feel that it is reasonable to say that conscious experience
>>> itself is uncaused and fundamental.
>>>
>> This has no meaning for me. It is like saying "don't ask".
>>
>
> Hmmmmm. You don't at all see what I'm trying to say?
>
> Okay, how about this: Reality is tautological.
>
> So if our conscious experience is caused by a rule-following system,
> based on a sequence of determinisitc transforms applied to an initial
> state...and this is true of both physicalism and your theory I
> think...then our conscious experience just is what it is. Tautology.
> Everything that follows was implicit in the setup.
>
> And there's no obvious reason that the "unpacked" version, where what
> follows is made *explicit*, shouldn't be considered as a whole - with
> the beginning, middle, and end states seen as existing simultaneously
> and timelessly. This makes the view that "it just is what it is" even
> more obvious.
>
>
>
>> Also, what do your theory say about accepting or not an artificial
>> brain?
>>
>
> IF consciousness is caused, then whether you accept or not is a
> forgone conclusion, implicit in the initial setup (initial state +
> transformation rules) of the system that caused your conscious
> experience. So there is no real choice to "accept or decline". Only
> the conscious experience of a choice.
>
> If consciousness is UNCAUSED and fundamental, then...same answer.
> There is no real choice to "accept or decline". Only the conscious
> experience of a choice.
>
>
>
>> More generally, how do you see the relation between brain and
>> conscience?
>>
>
> Brains only exist as something that we consciously perceive.
>
> I'm sure that my brain can be viewed as representing the contents of
> my experience. And I'm sure that a computer program could also be
> written that would represent the contents of my conscious experience
> and whose representational state would evolve as the program ran so
> that it continued to match the contents of my experience over time.
> But this would not mean that the program was conscious, or that my
> brain is the source of my consciousness.
>
> The living brain and the executing computer program both just
> represent the contents of my conscious experience, in the same way
> that a map represents the actual terrain.
>
When you set fire to a map the land doesn't burn.
Brent
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Received on Fri Aug 14 2009 - 00:21:58 PDT