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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: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
Message-ID: <1995Feb23.041001.26227@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
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References: <departedD3vKy5.M3B@netcom.com> <D4CBxB.I5z@ucc.su.oz.au> <kovskyD4D4uy.1nn@netcom.com> <1995Feb21.222113.23970@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> <kovskyD4F01u.7qy@netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 04:10:01 GMT
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In <kovskyD4F01u.7qy@netcom.com> kovsky@netcom.com (Bob Kovsky) writes:
>In the previous article Greg Stevens responded to a message from me:

><deletia>

>I wrote:

>>>...Consciousness is
>>>seriously consequential:  compare your ability to do something while
>>>consciously attending to it with your ability to do the same thing
>>>unconsciously. 

>Mr. Steven responded:

>>But a machine that is not conscious could potentially perform that task
>>also.  It is possible that the neurological firings could be completely
>>mechanistically accounting for your behavior, while your SUBJECTIVE
>>experience of it is epiphenomenal. 

>There are no such machines.

But such machines could in principle exist.  Humans have finite capacity to
distinguish sensory input along a finite number of sensory input channels
(sensory neurons) and thus has a finite number of possible inputs at any
given time; humans have finite precision with motor activity along a
inite number of motor output channels (motor neurons) and thus have a finite
number of possible outputs; humans live a finite amoutn of time and there
fore have a finite number of internal states.

Conclusion: with finite inputs, outputs and states, any human could be
THEORETICALLY modelled on a Turing-equivalent machine.

>Some people, such as some computer
>scientists, fantasize about them; but, their attempts to construct such
>machines always suffer "brittle failures."o

Which does not mea nthat it is in principle not possible.  Notice for
my argument it is not necessary that building such a machine be physically
realizable or practical, merely theoretically possible.  If such a
thing is theoretically possible, then conscious activity could be produced
by a non-subjective thing (assuming such a Turing machine would not be
subjective by mere fact of its complexity), and therefore consciousness
and subjectivity are not logically NECESSARY to account for conscious-
like behavior to any arbitrary degree of precision.

>	You are asserting a myth of "objectivity."  "ALL experience" is 
>subjective, ab initio.  Formalisms and methodologies are used to construct 
>"objectivity."  But what are the consequences of those formalisms and 
>methodologies?  Do they not, perhaps, gut the life our of experience?

Nope, it does not gut the life of our experiences.  It makes it epiphenomenal.
:-)

>	If instead of arguing from dogmas and fantasizing about power, you
>quieted your mind and <looked at your life>, you might come to appreciate
>the consequential importance of consciousness in it. 

Upon meditation you might realize that your consciousness is actually of
no consequence, and that all of the phenomena of your consciousness,
such as subjective construction of sensory experience, are illusory.

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

