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From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
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Date: Sun, 15 Jan 95 00:24:38 GMT
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In <3f9flm$o73@news.u.washington.edu> forbis@cac.washington.edu (Gary Forbis ) writes:
>In article <1995Jan14.035322.12858@news.media.mit.edu>, minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:

>|> Well, I think Greg is sort of right on this.  Consider what Greg said,
>|> about the zombie behaving as he does.  Now observe that Greg is talking
>|> about consciousness just the way that you and I conscious folks do.
>|> Why on earth, then, would a mindless brain talk about consciousness as
>|> though it did in fact experience all those feelings, reflections, and
>|> reflections about reflections, if there were nothing going on inside?
>|> It would be a inconceivably improbable coincidence!
>|> 
>|> Yes, as I concluded somewhere in "The Society of Mind," there is
>|> indeed something about brains that make minds logically necessary.  It
>|> is because "Minds are simply what Brains do."  It's neither the
>|> structure nor the physics; it's the information-processing procedures.

It's amazing how the idiosyncracies of one's private language go unchecked
for the longest time.  To me, apparently unbeknownst to you, my referring
to "structure" of the brain giving rise to minds was intended to denote
the formal or logical structure, i.e. to information-processing procedures.
I am in agreement with you, but was using the term "structure" not to
refer to the physical substrate of the embodiment but its formal capacity.

>In article <1995Jan14.130814.9215@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>,
>stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens) writes:
>|> Personally, I would say that given that consciousness doesn't seem to
>|> specifically be necessary for evolutionary benefit, it is likely that it
>|> arised as a necessary biproduct of physiological function.  After all,
>|> if it were possible for brains without subjectivity to emerge, it seems
>|> that they would have because there is no evolutionary pressuer wither way
>|> (of course, it is entirely possible that they have -- how would we know?).
>|> It could be a similar kind of emergent phenomenon to the clearness of
>|> H2O to electromagnetic radiation of a certain frequency -- it is not talking
>|> within the realm of structural possibility in this universe to say,
>|> "Imagine pure water which was not clear..." because that is a product of
>|> its structure and physics.
>|>
>|> Of course, blindsight could throw an entirely new angle on this (there
>|> being at least sections of perception which can occur without "qualia")

>I accept that we have consciousness.  As you say, consciousness doesn't seem
>to be specifically necessary for evolutionary benefit.  That it arose when it
>doesn't seem to be required or even be selectable makes the default assumption
>suspect.  I am more comfortable with the notion that consciousness is in fact
>a necessary consequence of the physics, either materially, structurally, or
>functionally.

That's what I think I believe, too (at least for right now :-).  My
interpretation would be that it is an emergent of functionality, or logical
structure, by necessity.  As Minsky said, "The mind is what the brain does."

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

