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This builds on a basic fallacy: 1. According to materialism, consciousness is purely a result of physical processes. 2. Our consciousness is complex. 3. Ther
by mannykannot 7y ago
This builds on a basic fallacy:
1. According to materialism, consciousness is purely a result of physical processes.
2. Our consciousness is complex.
3. Therefore, materialism says that any physical entity with a complexity comparable to us is probably conscious.
At best, going from the two premises to the conclusion involves a tendentious and useless definition of 'consciousness' that equivocates over the specific features of the consciousness of genus Homo that make it distinctly interesting. Tononi's IIT makes the same mistake.
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1823 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1823
- skissane 7y agoSo: Consciousness = Complexity + X X = what? And how can we be sure that, whatever the X is, that the United States does not have it?
- mannykannot 7y agoFirstly, consciousness is probably not well-modeled as arbitrary complexity plus X, as the complexity is likely inherent to X, and have a quite specific form. For example, it seems unlikely, on basic information-theoretic grounds, that the notoriously complex turbulent flow of a fluid in a pipe is materially closer to consciousness than laminar flow in that pipe. Secondly, the burden of proof (or just of showing evidence) rests squarely on the person making the claim that the United States probably has it (whatever 'it' happens to be.) It is hard to do that whan you cannot say, with any specificity at all, what X is. If your latest post is intended to be a defense of Schwitzgebel's paper, I think you are missing his point. I think he regards the consciousness of the United States counterfactually, and is attempting to show that materialism leads to an implausible conclusion, but he fails to do so, partly on account of the problem I raised in my original post.