Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: departed@netcom.com (just passing through)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete?
Message-ID: <departedD4G116.D5M@netcom.com>
Keywords: continuous, discrete, quantized
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <departedD437At.FxE@netcom.com> <D4Etu5.5KC@lut.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 08:02:55 GMT
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In article <D4Etu5.5KC@lut.ac.uk>,
Adam `moose` Bridgen <A.Bridgen@lut.ac.uk> wrote:
>A few ideas from   Richard Wesson departed@netcom.com  (article not included, just because right....)
> 
>Why do you want to define consciousness? Once you have done so there is no 
>continuous range of conciousness, only artefacts that fit your definition 
>or not. If you percieve consciousness as being an attribute of your artefact 
>per se, then you should be able to define it. However if, say, you label 
>something as conscious because in your judgement it exhibits enough of a set 
>of behaviors, then you're in trouble.

Calling consciousness a certain set of external behaviors could get you
in trouble, I agree.  We need something tight enough so that if you had
a 'glass window' into the mind, you could call what you see consciousness,
or not, or maybe somewhat conscious.  I think it _IS_ possible to define
consciousness in this manner -- if not, then it's hopeless anyhow.  (You
have probably observed yourself as being conscious -- why not then the
appropriate machine, if you could observe it closely enough?)
I don't agree that defining consciousness would make it a discontinuous
property ... it could still be fuzzy ... things are red, or quite red, or
somewhat red, or not at all red.

>
>When you use a quality without context it is meaningless. However, I have a 
>context for the term consciousness, namely ME. This causes problems because 
>it is personal; However, I can still communicate and describe consciousness 
>by attempting to map my context onto yours. I cannot see that you would get 
>very far explaining consciousness to something that isn't (say, a tree).

That's true; I would hope to define it in terms of what happens to
information, rather than as something singular you can only point at,
"you know".

>
>Finally, I would like to see examples for entities X and Y, one of which 
>is conscious, one not, but X and Y only differ infinitesimally. Until you 
>cite examples you cannot ask to be given a reason. At present, I can't think 
>of any.

Well, I certainly couldn't think of any, that's partly why I think 
consciousness is a continuous function in that sense.  Only if it's
discontinuous would you see X and Y being conscious and not, whilst being
only infinitesimally different.  That situation, I would find strange,
and want to know the reason therefore.

>
> -- Adam Bridgen. 

-- Richard Wesson (departed@netcom.com)

