Jonathan Colvin writes:
>There's a question begging to be asked, which is (predictably I suppose,
>for
>a qualia-denyer such as myself), what makes you think there is such a thing
>as an "essence of an experience"? I'd suggest there is no such "thing" as
>an
>observer-moment. I'm happy with using the concept as a tag of sorts when
>discussing observer selection issues, but I think reifying it is likely a
>mistake, and goes considerably beyond Strong AI into a full Cartesian
>dualism. Is it generally accepted here on this list that a
>substrate-independent thing called an "observer moment" exists?
I don't see why you make a big deal out of observer moments. You observe
something, so that's an observer moment; then you observe something else,
and that's another observer moment; and so on. There is no implied theory
about what brings about these OM's, how long a moment is, whether the OM's
can in any sense have an existence separate from the substrate they are
implemented on, whether a brain is necessary or a computer will do, whether
two different OM's belonging to the same observer can each be implemented on
different hardware, etc. These may be worthwhile questions to ask, and the
OM concept may help in the process of trying to find an answer, but the
concept itself does not constitute or imply a theory.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Wed Jun 08 2005 - 08:56:57 PDT