From: Eric Hardison (bijaz@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri Jun 25 1999 - 11:19:09 MDT
> Of course my dog is conscious, and why wouldn't an
> equivalently complex computer be?
Because a dog is meatware.
Seriously, a computer in the traditional sense? As in a Von Neuman
machine? It might be conscious, but its consciousness, if it even
exists, is COMPLETELY different from ours.
Clearly, the waves of matter can be interpreted in two ways: as
descriptions of wave/particle phenomenon OR as descriptions of isolated
points/waves of consciousness.
The point is that unless you are willing to assume that inanimate
objects have a coherent (intelligent) consciousness, then you have to
come up with a theory that describes the way that those waves can
INTERFERE to form intelligent patterns.
You are surrounded by a large number of conscious "things." Any time you
have an active system of waves, then you have a conscious experience (as
determined by the nature of those waves). Any time a wave gets
TRANSDUCED into a new medium, it becomes a unique and separate conscious
experience. But these entities are not "minds" as we would say. They are
simplistic, basic forms like the solitary sound of an instrument. A mind
is a full orchestra of sounds that has an inherent intelligence.
Now the brain is your basic input/output system. It has all of these
signals (waves) coming in and out of it. It stands to reason, I presume,
that if you were to add all of those waves, you would get an
interference pattern -- continuously varying (in time). I hold that this
"varying pattern" IS the conscious mind.
Note that I am assuming superluminal (FTL) signaling here. I cannot
escape the facts that are presented to me in my own conscious -- the
mere fact that consciousness exists requires superluminality. My brain
has centers for the processing of many different inputs and for the
generation of new output. And each center itself is composed of a large
number of special purpose centers. Yet I experience the net sum of all
these waves SIMULTANEOUSLY. This cannot be unless I (the interference
pattern) exist in ALL points of the BOUNDED region SIMULTANEOUSLY.
So what I'm saying is that the INDIVIDUAL waves that create my mind are
CAUSAL phenomena, but I (the interference of those waves at any moment
of time) am a NON-CAUSAL phenomenon. But remember that I am a CAUSED,
non-causal phenomenon. (There's no way to "jump out of the system" as
Doug Hofstadter would say.)
But why is it limited to the brain? It's limited because of the
transduction of the signal. When a light wave passes from the medium
outside of the brain into the medium of the brain, its associated
conscious experience becomes BOUNDED within that medium. This must be so
because, through experience, we know that our mind is limited to the
region of space associated with a brain -- well, the particular wave
modulations of space-time associated with a brain (whatever ALL of those
may be).
The brain itself is, generally, shaped like the hemisphere of the
Earth -- the great circle of the horizon and the "dome" of the sky. And
thus, the BOUNDED region of the waves that represent your mind is a
proportion model of the world around you -- as far as the eye can see
(which is problematic expression, putting the onus of action on the eye
instead of the light waves entering the eye...)
I have a lot of fun with this idea, and I could go on. But I won't
needlessly bore you with the non-scientific fantasies of college
student...
Back to the computer consciousness problem: the interference patterns of
a computer SYSTEM (bounded set of waves), would be totally unlike those
of a our meatware brain. I am reasonably confident that YOUR experience
of the "red" EM frequency is close to mine (not exactly the same). But
if a computer were made to intelligently transduce the same "red"
frequency into ITS system, I have NO IDEA what the nature of ITS
experience would be.
Eric
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