From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!batcomputer!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!37.1!avl0 Sat Oct 24 20:44:59 EDT 1992
Article 7386 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: avl0@cine88.cineca.it
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (quantum consciousness)
Message-ID: <1992Oct23.171726.588@cine88.cineca.it>
Date: 23 Oct 92 17:17:26 +0100
Organization: CINECA, Italian Interuniversity comp. centre
Lines: 34

In article <tim.719734846@giaeb> tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (Tim Roberts) said:
>
>Why is so much discussion centred around whether something (computer, robot,
>alien) "has" consciousness ?  This implies something either has consciousness
>or not, and there is no intermediate state.  This is against almost all
>biological principles (and other principles too, for that matter - would you
>contend that a chair had 100% "chair-ness" all the time ?).

You miss the point. In short consciousness could be "knowing to be something"
not just "to be something". Does the chair know its chair-ness?
Moreover, there's not chair-ness in the wood, you have to add an order in your
wooden mass to obtain the chair with its chair-ness.
I feel there's something concerning the goal in the thing-ness of a thing.

You can add an infinity of elements scoring 0 in consciousness (of what?: of them
selves or of whole they constitute?), asserting that the whole has consciousness
is *at least* as irrational as admit that consciousness has no intermediate state.
Otherwise you must postulate a minimum of consciousness in every
atom, electron and so on. Well: how do you mesured this consciousness?
How much consciousness has my leg or one of my neurons? (Again, of what?)
Is my corpse conscious? How much?
And the situation does not change assigning consciousness to interactions.
Really it's an "ad hoc" postulate, no more credible than a boojum.

Biology looks for biological or biochemical phenomena, it can't find anything like
consciousness as Physics can't assert a thermostat WONT (at a level low as you like)
to stop heating a room.

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