Dear Stathis,
I would like to thank you for pointing this out, even thought it should
be obvious to anyone that has any thoughts about consciousness. Any model
that we propose must consider a very wide range of consciousness, including
the insanities, and maybe, just maybe, it might make some predictions about
what the upper and lower bounds on consciousness. Additionally, maybe we
could require, of a theory of consciousness, some explanation of qualia...
Maybe I am asking for too much. ;-)
Stephen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
To: <aet.radal.ssg.domain.name.hidden>; <everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com>
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
> Dear aet.radal ssg,
>
> I think you missed my point about the amnesic and psychotic patients,
> which
> is not that they are clear thinkers, but that they are conscious despite a
> disability which impairs their perception of time. Your post raises an
> interesting question in that you seem to assume that normally functioning
> human minds have a correct model of reality, as opposed to the "broken"
> minds of the mentally ill. This is really very far from the truth. Human
> brains evolved in a specific environment, often identified as the African
> savannah, so the model of the world constructed by the human mind need
> only
> match "reality" to the extent that this promoted survival in that
> environment. As a result, we humans are only able to directly perceive and
> grasp a tiny, tiny slice of physical reality. Furthermore, although we are
> proud of our thinking abilities, the theories about physical reality that
> humans have come up with over the centuries have in general been
> ridiculously bad. I have spent the last ten years treating patients with
> schizophrenia, and I can assure you that however bizarre the delusional
> beliefs these people come up with, there are multiple historical examples
> of
> apparently "sane" people holding even more bizarre beliefs, and often
> insisting on pain of death or torture that everyone else agree with them.
>
> You might point out that despite the above, science has made great
> progress.
> This is true, but it has taken the cumulative efforts of millions of
> people
> over thousands of years to get to our current level of knowledge, which in
> any case is still very far from complete in any field. Scientific progress
> of our species as a whole is mirrored in the efforts of a psychotic
> patient
> who gradually develops insight into his illness, recognising that there is
> a
> difference between real voices and auditory hallucinations, and learning
> to
> reason through delusional beliefs despite the visceral conviction that
> "they
> really are out to get me".
>
> --Stathis Papaioannou
>
>>From: "aet.radal ssg" <aet.radal.ssg.domain.name.hidden>
>>To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
>>Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
>>Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 10:44:25 -0500
>>
>
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Received on Mon May 09 2005 - 12:44:02 PDT