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From: kovsky@netcom.com (Bob Kovsky)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
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Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 03:06:22 GMT
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In the previous article, Greg Stevens wrote:


Position A:

>Yet I can disagree with symbolic representationalism (as in fact I do)
>and still believe that behaviors can be accounted for by a matrix of
>observed responses-to-inputs.  That is, although I believe that we
>consist of a mechanism that is adaptive rather than representing,
>any adapting system can be INTERPRETED and talked about AS IF it were
>representing.
>
[deletia]
>
>If we built something which merely correlated inputs with outputs, I do
>not think it would be mimicking the PROCESS of how people work, but it
>would be a difference process giving rise to the same OBSERVABLES.
>This was my original point -- you could theoretically have consciousness-
>like-activity arising from a process other-than-ours which is potentially
>not-conscious.

Position B:

>Based on your representation of their theories, I agree with them 
>completely.  But now we are discussing the actual processes giving
>rise to our behaviors, and the structures of those processes.  I
>was saying originally that something using DIFFERENT processes could
>come up with the same observable behaviors (such as an arbitrarily
>large T-machine) but may not be consciouss.  Therefore, 
>although consciousness implied conscious activity, conscious activity
>does not imply consciousness, and so therefore there seems to be
>very little causal role for consciousness in function.  That is,
>it seems epiphenomenal and without advantage, behaviorally or
>evolutionarily.

	I believe Position A implies Position B.  (Human intelligence is
mechanistic implies that consciousness is not advantageous.) My observed
reality is that consciousness is advantageous.  Hence I conclude that
Position A is false. 

-- 

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    Bob Kovsky          |  A Natural Science of Freedom 
    kovsky@netcom.com   |  Materials available by anonymous ftp
                        |  At ftp.netcom.com/pub/fr/freedom
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