From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Mon Dec 11 2000 - 18:20:55 MST
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 15:21:32 -0500
From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Immortality
Steve Nichols <steve@multisell.com> Wrote:
>Name me any finite-state components that can readjust their logic in
>response to the environment
>A thermostat.
A thermostat is set to switch on or off at a given (preset)
temperature. It cannot decide to override this setting, so
does not make this "decision" internally. So this example
could not be more wrong. Finite-state, yes, infinite-state
capacity ... definitely not! If a thermostat can alter its own
settings, then it is infinite-state by definition.
>I say you can't because finite-state means pre-set switching.
>Nonsense, Turing showed in 1930 that you the only way to know
>what a Turing machine is going to do is run the program and see,
>and a Turing machine is finite state unless it runs for an infinite
>amount of time.
Turing machines are neither conscious, nor infinite-state.
Digital computers tends to be finite-state, whereas analog(ous
to infinite-state) evolvable hardware is more like our brains.
I cite Inman & Thompson's work with R.G.A. circuits at COGS,
University of Sussex.
Turing machines are hard-wired and cannot evince PHASIC
TRANSIENT behaviour ... correct me if I am wrong? R.E.M.
as I would claim is a random-like phenomena because E-1
brains are still (in long evolution terms) changing from finite to
infinite-state.
>Consciousness requires a degree of self-organisation.
>You mean like amorphous mater molecules forming into a crystal
>when things get cold?
For a start, we are talking about brains here ... and brains have/
require a degree of plasticity. Inhibition and other effects allow the
neuronal circuitry of the brain to change .. so the brain is
self-organising.
Your water example is meaningless.
> I don't want to get bogged down in semantics here .... so I claim that
REM
>(rapid eye movement) indicates dream mentation.
>You are free to claim whatever you like but I asked how are you going to
prove
>I'm conscious. You still haven't answered me. And even in the unlikely
event
>the "lost pineal eye" is somehow important, who cares, how would that
"fact"
>effect the debate we were having in the slightest degree?
The debate seems to centre on the problems resolving Leibnitz Law ...
that to be truly "identical" the two things in question must be fully
interchangeable. Sense-data (experience) and the conscious sensor/ self
seem to be different types ... this is the problem for brain-mind identity
theorists. However, MVT explains the virtual sensor(gan), the phantom median
eye,
which gives the persistent experience of self in terms of generation (action
potential
signals &c) of the *same* generic neuronal information as the sense-data
(contents
of consciousness).
This is a major reason why MVT is important, most theories of mind
(including
Descartes' dualist account) fail on this point. Brains are necessary, but
not
sufficient for consciousness (they could be in mu-state ... don't you
agree?)
As to whether I can *prove* that you are conscious (whoever "me/ you" are)
... I don't want to get bogged down in individual cases because of the
problem
of solipsism. Do you accept that dreams happen? If you do, then you are
allowing me that the dreamers (in general, whether birds, mammal, or *you*)
have consciousness.
www.steve-nichols.com
Posthuman
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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