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Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!prodigal.psych.rochester.edu!stevens
From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <1995Jan12.184559.2530@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
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Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 18:45:59 GMT
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In <3f23q4$oc4@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> prem@ix.netcom.com (Prem Sobel) writes:
>In <sa209.105@utb.shv.hb.se> sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson) 
>writes: 

>..
>> Picture a world with humans who lacks conciousness and self awareness. 
>>They just respond to a stimulus with reactions in exactly  the same way
>> as we do. It happens in the same way as they have memory, instincts 
>>etc. just like us but they are not at all self aware. ...

>It seems fantastic that in such a world life could survive at all.
>The body is so surprisingly frail. Look at what happens to a Leper
>just because the sensation is removed. 

Note, the original poster didn't say lack of reaction or responsiveness to
stimulus --note the second sentence.  This isn't talking about a failure
of neurological mechanisms, it's talking about a lack of subjective 
experience, while all else remains the same.

While it is an interesting thought experiment, and brings up the point that
there is no evolutionary benefit to consciousness (as natural selection acts
on behaviors not thoughts), it is assuming that organisms and responsiveness
CAN arise without subjective perception.  People say, "Well, I can imagine
an organism with no subjectivity but still behaving as I do..." but is
it possible?

At one point people could imagine birds talking, when their physiological
make-ups prevent them from making sounds like that, and people could imagine
dis-embodied minds, when current theories about mind arising from brain
function would declare that impossible.  Just because we can imagine it
doesn't even mean, I would hold, that it is LOGICALLY possible.

(for this see the ongoing debate about whether or not one can imagine
a round square)


Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

