Re: What do you lose if you simply accept...

From: John M <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 14:59:28 -0400

Lee:
how would you relate to my generalization of the (non Shannon) information
concept:

---- Acknowledged difference ----

where the acknowledgor is not specified nor is the nature of the difference
?
(just 'deifferenc' is no information, unless absorbed into a pool of
organized data, identity does not constitute information - unless compared
with not-identity, to which it IS a difference.)
It can range from a differential el. charge to a Shakespeare story.

Cheers

John M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
To: "EverythingList" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 3:07 AM
Subject: RE: What do you lose if you simply accept...


> Stathis writes
>
> > I was using the term "information" loosely, to include what is commonly
> > termed qualia, subjective experience etc. I agree that if a physical
system
> > is fully specified, then that is all you need in order to duplicate or
> > emulate the system. The new system will do everything the original one
did,
> > including have conscious experiences. It's worth stressing this point
again:
> > you don't need any special, non-physical information to emulate or
duplicate
> > a conscious system; you don't need God to provide it with a soul, you
don't
> > need to purchase a mind-body interface kit, you don't need to meditate
and
> > wave quartz crystals around, and you don't need to have 1st person
knowledge
> > of its subjective experiences. All you need is a few kilograms of raw
> > materials, a molecular assembler mechanism, and the data which indicates
> > where each bit goes. Once the job is finished, you automatically have a
> > system which talks, eats, and is conscious. Psychology and biology have
been
> > reduced to physics and chemistry. Consciousness has been shown to be
just be
> > an emergent phenomenon in a particular type of biological computer.
Agree so
> > far?
>
> Well, this is certainly all right by me---though hardly by everyone
> here. You have described very well the ordinary reduction of humans
> and animals to ordinary physical mechanisms, a view that was
> widespread among materialists all through the 19th and 20th
> centuries, even if they didn't have as much evidence as we do.
>
> > OK: having said all that, and assuming at this point that we know the
> > position and function of every atom in this newly created system, I
*still*
> > would wonder what it feels like to actually *be* this system.
>
> Have you read Hofstadter's comments on Thomas Nagel's essay "What is
> it Like to be a Bat?". (Most easily accessed in "The Mind's I" by
> Hofstadter and Dennett.) And I presume that you're familiar with
> Daniel Dennett's views on qualia, as in "Consciousness Explained",
> but that you reject them? (I'm rather new to this list.)
>
> Lee
>
>
Received on Wed May 18 2005 - 15:14:41 PDT