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Article 7011 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daveo@IMSI.COM (Dave Oberholtzer)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
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Date: 22 Sep 92 16:11:13 GMT
References: <1992Sep13.194856.21976@meteor.wisc.edu> <1992Sep17.181358.1828@Princeton.EDU> <1992Sep20.180454.4161@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>
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In article <1992Sep20.180454.4161@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> tobis@xrap3.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>In article <1992Sep17.181358.1828@Princeton.EDU>, rdnelson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger D Nelson) writes:
>|> In article <1992Sep13.194856.21976@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>|> [about unobservability of consciousness...]
>|> 
>|> >[...] that it exists, and yet we cannot observe it in a physical context. I have
>|> >no evidence, physical or otherwise, for this extraphysical component of 
>|> >chemistry. [...]
>|> 
>|> I'm looking at evidence of consciousness in the text on my monitor, more
>|> particularly in the structure therein.  [...]
>
> I don't know exactly what you mean by "high school level", but indeed I
> am using a narrow interpretation of science which limits its scope to
> purely objective phenomena. 

It has been bothering me for some time what kind of definition to use
for the science to use to measure things like consciousness.  I, too,
would like to be able to objectively measure such subjective things.

> What you take to be evidence of my consciousness
> is such only as perceived in your consciousness, and as such is purely
> subjective. 

There's the rub...

> Perhaps, though, I am only a very cleverly implemented
> automaton with no existential reality.

Of course, at some point, some assumptions must be made, perhaps
the universe won't be created until next thursday and this whole
thread is just a memory programmed into our storage units...

> You can never be certain in the
> same way you are certain of your own awareness.

Of which even that can sometimes be brought into question.  Could 'deja vu'
be, perhaps, a situation (using the computer analogy of the brain) a case 
where short term memory, in the process of reorganizing and storing data
simply stores a passage, forgets if it stored it and then tries to store
it again?  You seem to be aware of what is happening, when 'in fact' you
may be 'experiencing' something that happened several cycles ago (living
through a buffer).

> I am NOT arguing that rational thought should not be applied to phenomena
> of consciousness because there is no consciometer. I am arguing that
> the idea that consciousness can be explained in some objective way is
> at best profoundly premature (and I continue to suspect that it is
> undecideable). 

I concurr in part.  I agree that it is still too early to be able to measure
consciousness objectively, but I feel that that is because we have not yet
found an objective way of describing (or defining) consciousness that is
suitable to all concerned.

> To apply reason to consciousness we must take consciousness
> to be axiomatic. This is a long way from taking it to be explained.
>
> The equivalence that you draw between complexity and consciousness is
> not demonstrated, and I suspect it cannot be demonstrated. If you wish 
> to treat it as an assumption and see where it leads, I have no objection.
> This is science if and only if you make your assumption explicit.
> Taking it as a fact rather than an assumption is hubris of the most
> profound imaginable magnitude, and is not science at all. (IMHO, of course)
>
> I think we should move this discussion to comp.ai.philosophy where it
> belongs, btw.
>
> mt (<-- not an algorithm)

One of the problems I faced in undergrad (and the main reason I stopped
pursuing AI/'learning behavior' as a career) was that the school I attended
placed TOO MUCH emphasis on objectivity to the exclusion of subjectivity.

I have often wondered about the subjective definition of consciousness.  Are
we so bent on describing 'it' as subjective that _any_ objective measures will 
be talked down immediately without considering them as possible explanations
of some part of the whole?

--daveo@IMSI.COM
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